Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Trust the APEC Police State.

Reporting live from Sydney, the home of this year's APEC conference. As I reported last time the Bush contingent is large and growing. In addition to the helicopters, gunships, fleet of 747's and C-17's, armored vehicles, limousines et el,
there is reportedly an aircraft carrier group within striking distance of Sydney. Additionally Bush is bringing at least 650 people with him, plus the security people who arrived here earlier. Total cost tbd, but more below the fold:

This will be brief, but thought it might be interesting to see what others think of our erstwhile emperor when he travels. Bush and his entourage will be arriving in Australia in September for the APEC conference. He will be travelling with a group that is almost battalion size. This does not include the indirect support provided by the military which must also position ships, planes and troops relatively nearby.
I have no idea how much this costs, but would guess that one Bush conference visit would cover the cost of health care for thousands of Americans for a year.

The Roman Emperors would have been jealous. Link to the Sydney Morning Herald and details below the fold:

Traveling Circus

How I Learned not to Believe my High School Civics Book.

First apologies for turning one of my comments into a diary, however, this is one thing that I think would be important to us all. It relates to how my conciousness was completely changed in one 30 minute conversation over dinner in Mexico City. I have always been a liberal, but prior to this was certainly a dogmatic American ideologue. The gist of this is that the US has done a remarkable job propagandizing its citizens about the purity of its democracy vis a vis the rest of the world. American democracy is not pure and today is less pure than at any other time in its history. We are in the hands of the oligarchs right now folks and are in danger of losing our republic.