On 28 April 1996 a mentally disturbed man slew 35 people in cold blood, and left 23 more wounded. The killer, Martin Bryant, showed no mercy.
Port Arthur is a historic prison colony tourist site in the state of Tasmania, Australia. That day Martin Bryant first murdered a couple in a nearby bed and breakfast hotel before heading to Port Arther and slaughtering 12 people eating lunch at a cafe, 8 people in a gift shop adjacent to the cafe, 4 people in the car park outside the cafe, 7 people on the way up a toll booth at the entrance to the site, a lady at a nearby service station, and her boyfriend at a nearby house whom Bryant had taken hostage.
The tragedy which became known as the Port Arthur Massacre was one of the worst shootings to occur in Australian history.
In a previous diary (my first) my signature contained a line from the top of a Nazi death camp. Without a proper explanation of what it meant a number of people took offense. For this I am deeply sorry and apologise. I have replaced it with a signature that I believe is easier to understand my point. On the recommendation of another poster I am reposting this diary to remove the inapproriate signature from the top of the page. The sig was intended is intended as an ironic descriptor of what modern day life has become - ie corporations and those on their politicsl payroll have broken the back of organised labour movement so well that people are now essentially stuck in a concentration camp of work. The sig line was of course the sign at the top of the death camp Auschwitz, the ultimate insult to tens of thousands of people murdered there. Just as the Nazis sold the lie that all the people had to do work to free themselves so to do corporations now sell the lie that we need to work to free ourselves. The poorer a person is the harder and longer they have to work. Then the corporate owned right wing parties turn arpund and tell us rich people are rich because they work harder than the rest of us. That's the great lie.
Rest of the diary below the fold. Sorry to everyone who made a comment in the previous diary already.
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