Sho Fukamachi Online

There’s a big conference going on in Sydney at the moment, with many CEOs of giant corporations gathered around the Opera House to talk about global domination, etc. Well, with conferences comes protestors, and true to form one can spot more than the normal number of wild-eyed, dreadlocked hippies wandering around the city shaking their fists and waving posters of George Bush with a Hitler moustache. It’s all very funny and totally ineffectual.

Anyway, I’m not sure if that certain type of person who really wants to protest things, no matter how futile, is shrinking in number or they’ve simply moved onto graffitiing trains to express their displeasure with “the man”, but the turnouts this year are just dismal. I was downstairs at lunch and happened to notice a protest forming up around the street – 20 or 30 dishevelled-looking misfits, complete with the zero-budget signs and banners which seem to be de rigeur for the unemployed agitator – absolutely surrounded by 6 police bikes, 2 cars, some normal police and about 12 of the “serious police” – no blue uniforms for them, just these unmarked black jumpsuits with “POLICE” written on the black. Everyone kind of understands you do not mess with those guys, as they only ever appear when there’s something big going down. I have no doubt just 3 or 4 of the black policemen could have subdued the entire group of 20 lefties – they must have been expecting a lot more.

Oh, and the whole time, a black helicopter hovered overhead. Cool!

I went back to get some photos but was too late. Here’s the helicopter though, out my office window:

Watching the lefties …

Above a building

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 31st, 2005 at 1:56 pm and is filed under politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.