Lone father paralyzes Sydney in rush hour protest
(AFP) – 2 hours ago
SYDNEY — A lone protester paralyzed rush-hour traffic in Australia’s largest city for hours Friday by scaling the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge and forcing the closure of the country’s busiest roadway.
The man, who said he was “ex-military”, evaded extensive security precautions to climb the bridge at dawn and hang two banners in a protest apparently linked to a custody dispute over his children.
The stunt forced the closure of the bridge that links north Sydney with the downtown area for around two hours, causing massive back-ups and leaving thousands of motorists and train and bus commuters stranded. ….
“If I have to stuff four million people around for one morning and that gets my kids and other kids help one day sooner, I have achieved my goal,” he said before rappelling down onto the roadway to be arrested by waiting police.
“Stuffing” four million people around. Goal achieved!
Getting more contact with your kids. Goal not so much achieved as hindered, I’m guessing.
More on the protestor here. He’s apparently a “bikie” – the Australian version of a biker – and “was almost killed during an alleged bikie shootout last year.”
UPDATE: As a result of this, the protester, Michael Fox has, not surprisingly, been ordered to not contact his ex-wife or family members.
And here’s an interesting detail from the coverage:
He left a note in his car, warning police to close the bridge and not to try to bring him down by force. “If anyone attempts to climb the upper arch of the bridge during my protest, the consequences will be fatal. Do what I ask and this will start and end peacefully,” it said. “You’ve taken my kids, I’ve taken your bridge.”
Generally speaking, nonviolent protestors don’t threaten “fatal consequences” for those who try to arrest them.
UPDATE 2: Another odd detail:
He last saw [his kids] almost 70 days ago, soon after a home owned by him was engulfed by fire. His estranged wife and one young daughter were sleeping inside. Both escaped the blaze.
Hey! Covers make the world go round! Without covers some songs would be forgotten to history 🙂
Hey Holly, I’m going to let you in on a little secret you’re not a pure race lineage wise. Thats right even 2500 years ago your precious purity was made up of amorite, loabs, moanites, ect, ect, ect. even palestinians. Further “Jewish” is a faith not a “race.” Oh horror of horrors. You are a convert to a faith. Just as I, as a Christian am a convert. It is not my race it is my faith.
holy… O_O nwoslave: king of the derails o_o
xD I just saw Hogan on TNA last night 😮 He would be displeased w/ you nwoslave… this is not how an nWoer should act… leg drop for you! xD
@holly: it’s always amusing to me about the “here’s a website link! i win!” thing xD it wonder if it’s cuz some ppl are still stuck in the past where being able to reach a mass audience in media meant that it was a big and therefore perceived to be “respectable” news organization and have since carried that over to the internet where they think “here’s a website!” is enough and it doesn’t matter what type of website it is or nething.. it’s just “it got published! there you go! see i’m right!” xD not that even a news org now rly means nething xD
i am a little idealistic… and waiting for blogger to get its act together… and my angel cat bunny side always wants to try being nice so…
um… nWo: why do you keep pointing the finger back at feminism? o_O it seems a little weird given that nobody was even talking about it here, they were talking about geopolitical history and the like… also feminism is always changing, and there are many different types of feminists 🙂 it’s not a secret cult or cabal… we dun have leaders and rituals where we wear masks and do blood rituals xD the thing is that you could prolly point to some comment somewhere in a feminist site about nething… a lot of well known or e-famous feminists have said problematic things… racist.. ablist… transphobic… there’s a bunch of women’s shelters that would never allow me in… I’ve read some rly awful things implying how awful and evil they think I am (not me me, women like me 🙂 ) it doesn’t mean i blame all of feminism, or even think most feminists are like this… there are a LOT of great feminists writing, and arguing and working towards changing these things… intersectionality is now becoming a bigger thing as more awareness is spreading among the feminist comm online 🙂 most feminists that I see are v pro fathers and changing the system too (incl me! 😀 ) I mean feminism HAS changed, and is still changing… so I just wanted to say that, b/c you said feminism needs to look in house, but we do, and we have and we always will, cuz feminism isn’t a cult, there’s no structure, and esp with the internet, it is no longer even about the few white straight cis women who could get books published, so there are even more voices, and I find more ideas and more discussion 🙂 So hopefully that will help at least clarify that point, even if you dislike feminism or etc… it’s definitely not static 🙂
and a 1… and a 2… i have a bad feeling about this >_>;; also a hilarious feeling about this! 😀 but we shall see >_>
Yeah, not all protests are created equal. In terms of effectiveness, all this guy did was get himself into more trouble. If it was a coordinated effort as part of a movement, then that would be another matter. As it is, it just looks like he’s being kind of a douche.
Still, I prefer his response to that of taking a gun and doing a murder-suicide. We had one of those locally just yesterday, though it was probably the result of a love triangle. So…go Australia?
Yeah, I know I’m not a “pure” Jew, whatever the hell that even means. I have blue eyes and red hair, for Chrissakes. What does that have to do with anything?
…Man, I’ve forgotten where this conversation even started. Anyway, child custody dude. Ill-advised, might have a point or might not, I’m glad he hasn’t expressed anything misogynist so I’ll try not to judge him too hard, really nothing to do with feminism.
Oh ya got me cynickal, I’m not every race. Here are the races I know for sure, going back a scant 2 generations. Dads side…Ukranian/English-Slovokian/Croatian-Serbian/Spanish…Moms side…Yugoslavian/Hungarian-Checslovacian/Moldavian-Albanian/Lithuanian.
Please forgive my all races remark, I hang my head in shame at my stupidity.
And, yes, citing the Institute for Historical Review is not the way to gain credibility outside the Neo-Nazi Conspiracy Theory set.
Apologies for whaaat? Silly! No, I know… I am the ripe old age of 35 (soon to be 36, oh, no I am well past ‘expired’!). Hey, we’re only a year apart! 🙂 SO, SO many awesome songs from the 70s and 80s have been covered, and it drives me kinda batty! It’s partially a ‘why-can’t-artists-nowadays-come-up-with-anything-ORIGINAL’ batty, and partially ‘I-MUST-turn-on-these-youngsters-to-Gary-Numan-dammit’ batty! I am also kinda bitter and think we are living in a sick and dying culture, so there’s that… I’d love to hear some new and truly ORIGINAL music that isn’t derivative crap or an almost exact cover of an original. I always keep my ears peeled for it!
And, also: KRAFTWERK! That is all. I love all y’all. /derail
@Captain Bathrobe yus, it might not be effective 🙁 but i suppose it’s up to him to decide how effective it is, or if it was worth it 🙂 Kinda like SlutWalk recently! All sorts of backlashy stuff said how useless it was and how it’ll make things worse and etc etc… but you dunno until you try! and I think the ppl marching thought it was useful 🙂
But I agree w/ you 🙂 effective or not, I think that what he did was at least doing something nonviolent and preferable to killing (sad that the bar seems so low 🙁 ) 🙂
so yus, go Australia! 😀
Hardly a douche Captain Bathrobe. Quite apparent the courts refused to grant equal custody. All the money in the world wouldn’t change the courts decision.
This “power” that a State has to deny a father access to his child shouldn’t even exist. Don’t you agree?
Hahaha, what NWO means by “all races” is that he’s every kind of white.
No shame in that, understand, but it doesn’t let you play the “I can’t be the oppressor because I’m multi-racial!” card too effectively.
Spanish, Holly = Not white. Please don’t disparage my “brown” side of my lineage. Thats quite a racist remark. Unless of course “white” = Bad? Is this how you feel?
Also, my understanding is that Trotsky fell from power before the worst of Stalin’s excesses (Forced Collectivization and the Purges). Not that Trotsky was a particularly nice guy, but he was not the complete monster that Stalin was.
Hardly a douche Captain Bathrobe. Quite apparent the courts refused to grant equal custody. All the money in the world wouldn’t change the courts decision.
This “power” that a State has to deny a father access to his child shouldn’t even exist. Don’t you agree?
It depends on the circumstances, NWO.
NWO – Some Spanish people are paler than others, but anyway you’re like 1/16th, which isn’t a good or bad thing, but it just makes it funny that you’re playing up this whole “all races” defense, when “all races” means “some of the races in Europe.”
Anyway.
This “power” that a State has to deny a father access to his child shouldn’t even exist. Don’t you agree?
No. I don’t agree. If the man has been abusive or negligent, then he should get no access. If he has played a partial role in raising the child, then he should get partial custody. The only time a man should get full custody is when the mother has been abusive or negligent (or doesn’t want custody).
When the mother and father disagree, the state has to make some kind of decision (the kids can’t be cut in half!), and I actually wish they did give more single dads a chance, but that’s still making a decision.
@Captain Bathrobe yus, it might not be effective 🙁 but i suppose it’s up to him to decide how effective it is, or if it was worth it 🙂 Kinda like SlutWalk recently! All sorts of backlashy stuff said how useless it was and how it’ll make things worse and etc etc… but you dunno until you try! and I think the ppl marching thought it was useful 🙂
Yes, but the Slutwalk was an organized protest directed at issues beyond the purely personal. This guy was protesting his situation and his only. Although he gave some lip service to “helping other kids” he was really just pissed off about his own situation. Understandable, but it hardly puts him in the same category as MLK or even the Slutwalkers.
NWOslave appears to wish men still had the pater familias of the Roman era where a man had absolute control over the life and death of his children.
Ok, I know this is getting like way off topic so tell me if I should stop David…
I just really love covers. I also like original new music. But I really love hearing songs reinvented. One of my minor hobbies is collecting covers of “Paint it Black”. It’s not my favorite song ever but it’s a damned good song that’s been covered by a lot of folks in a lot of different genres. Turns out my fiance ALSO collects covers of “Paint it Black”! That’s how we knew we were made for each other 🙂 Ok, not really, but it was a pretty cool coincidence and we’ll be dancing to one of those covers at our wedding.
The apology was ’cause when I looked up the lyrics to make sure I had it right (I am pretty bad at remembering exact lyrics) I didn’t read far enough to see who did the original. I didn’t even know Fear Factory was the cover I was hearing all these years (yeah, even that is 12 years old now) until I looked it up. It’s just a good song that got a bunch of radio play for a while and stuck in my head but I don’t own it.
A bunch of my friends are busy being annoyed that they’re remaking movies from our childhood too and I don’t get that. I mean, ok, if they do a shitty job I’ll be annoyed but plenty of remakes have come out awesome. I thought the new Italian Job was way better than the first. The remake of The Omen wasn’t as good as the original but was still worth watching. The remake of The Stepford Wives wasn’t great but neither was the original (I can appreciate it for historical reasons though – hey, look, an op-topic-ish tie-in to feminism!)
So now we have a “bad” meter as it were Captain Bathrobe. I can go down the list of my little known lineage and name all the “bad” people on it.
To be honest everyone of you purebreds seem a bit racist to a mutt like myself. Everyone points the finger at such and such a race while their own seems to garnish an instant reaction of defense.
How about we all just go with the person was a freak and if that freak happened to be of x lineage lets not deny the “pure” race of that person and admit that yes that person is a freak and that person also is of x “pure” lineage?
Lets cut the crap here, there are people of every race that have done evil. No ones “pure” race is pure and good.
NWOslave appears to wish men still had the pater familias of the Roman era where a man had absolute control over the life and death of his children.
And then he’d still think that women had too much power. To support his arguments, he would direct us to a scroll in the Apollo Library claiming that the sack of Carthage never occurred and then complain when we refused to read it.
^ ??????
This conversation has officially dropped off the face of the Earth and is now hurtling past a great many turtles on the way down.
@PosterformerlyknownasElizabeth, Yes I’m such a bad man for endorsing Equal custody.
I just can’t help it, I’m evil that way!
So now we have a “bad” meter as it were Captain Bathrobe. I can go down the list of my little known lineage and name all the “bad” people on it.
To be honest everyone of you purebreds seem a bit racist to a mutt like myself. Everyone points the finger at such and such a race while their own seems to garnish an instant reaction of defense.
How about we all just go with the person was a freak and if that freak happened to be of x lineage lets not deny the “pure” race of that person and admit that yes that person is a freak and that person also is of x “pure” lineage?
Lets cut the crap here, there are people of every race that have done evil. No ones “pure” race is pure and good.
How on earth does that respond to anything I’ve said?
But the only reason I want Equal custody is so I can oppress women and children. MUHAHAHA.