World Series Protest: Australian edition

As we predicted, it is time.

Ladies and gentlemen we are under starter's orders. We have Chinese security who are determined to form a human ring around the torch. We have every remaining Kombi from the North Coast and patchouli-powered Corolla from North Shore Sydney along with every Private School Marxist from Melbourne gathered in the nation's capital. We've got a feisty Federal Police force determined not to have the Chaser make them look like dickheads. We've got roughly 10,000 Chinese members of Amway loose somewhere north of the Murray.

Ladies and gentlemen, suddenly we have some of those online rapscallions at Crikey even telling people to get into it:

China’s Foreign Ministry have warned against protests in Canberra because the torch "belongs to the whole world". That the corrupt thugs who run China (latest
effort – dispatching a boatload of weapons to fellow despot Bob Mugabe) object to expressions of dissent even in other countries is no surprise. But let’s get over this fetishisation of the Olympics.

Year after year the same faces, the Kevin Gospers and John Coateses who are apparently on the Olympics gravy train for life, stand up to declare that it’s all about the sport, or world peace, or the youth of the world. In fact it’s a giant media event designed to generate massive revenue which, this time around, is being employed to promote one of the world’s most brutal regimes.
And you can see where these sports administrators come from.

Just about every athlete or sports person parrots the same lines about sport having nothing to do with politics or, for that matter, morality, as if sports – professional, international sport, in all its cash-generating glory – is somehow a priori disconnected from basic ethics and standards of
civilized behaviour.

For those planning to have a crack at disrupting the relay, or who just want to marvel at some wonderful security overkill, the event kicks off at 8.30am tomorrow morning.

Whoah, go Crikey! Somehow we don't reckon your mob are the kind to get out of bed early and loft a water balloon - but the sentiment's there. It's time we turned the Olympic Torch relay into something meaningful - and World Series Protest can begin with us here in Australia.

If Tintin and his crew manage to continue their shiny new Post-Hawkie/Labor Intellectual Love party, we're doomed to life without one last mass punch-on between bogans with slogans and gym-toned burly blokes whipped into a frenzy by the nation's tabloid press, radio and tv, and frankly, after 11 years of the Evil Bastards and the 2007-style Grand Final finish to the election, we deserve better than that.

It's going to be a kick-on, and I just know Australia's going to show the world how it's done.