The Angry Exile: www.stephen-conroy.com

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Saturday, 19 December 2009

www.stephen-conroy.com

Senator Stephen Conroy, the fucknuts Minister for Restriction of Communications and Internet Censorship, is so on the ball when it comes to the interwebs that he never secured the URL for his own name.

He wants to censor the internet but what will Communications Minister Stephen Conroy do about a spoof website that uses his own name to protest against the Government's internet filtering policy?

A net prankster has taken advantage of Conroy's failure to reserve his own domain name by registering stephenconroy.com.au and turning it into an anti-censorship protest site (link now goes nowhere, see below - AE).

Under the banner "Stephen Conroy: Minister for Fascism", the site includes a disparaging cartoon strip, a nasty online poll, links to news stories regarding Conroy's internet filtering plan and links to web pages where people can complain about the policy.

...

Conroy's spokesman has not responded to questions asking about possible measures to seize control of the stephenconroy.com.au domain name.

Well, it looks like something is going on because www.stephenconroy.com.au now goes nowhere. But Conroy's lack of internet savvy extends to search engines too, so it didn't take me very long to find www.stephen-conroy.com, the new home for the arguably offensive - if you're Stephen Conroy - content formerly at the .com.au location. At the very top of the page they have this to say (my emphasis):

auDA, the .au Domain Administrator is trying to take us offline. Earlier today they issued a notice giving us 3 hours to provide evidence of our eligibility to hold the 'stephenconroy.com.au' and related domain names. Normally registrants are provided with approximately one week to provide this information on request. We asked for reasonable time to prepare and submit representations on our eligibility but auDA refused to grant this. Accordingly we've moved the site to 'stephen-conroy.com' - please update your bookmarks. Conroy's office must have been busy this afternoon!

SEE OUR PAGE ON AUDA'S DOMAIN CENSORSHIP

The page on auDA linked to has the email exchange, and an interesting read it is too. Worth quoting en bloc:

As per the note on our front page auDA, the .au Domain Administrator suspended registration of our 'stephenconroy.com.au' and related domain names. At the time of writing they have failed to provide us with a detailed explanation as to why and have refused to provide us with adequate time to reply to their allegation.

Following receipt of this notice we called auDA today to get an explanation and were asked to state our position in writing and so we did. See the email chain below.

It is out (sic) opinion that as we are providing content which is of direct relevance to the 'stephenconroy.com.au' domain name we are eligible to hold it. It is not auDA's place to form an opinion regarding how agreeable the content is, but in this instance to judge it's relevance to the domain name.

We feel that auDA has acted POLITICALLY to CENSOR our website and to intentionally limit our ability to distribute dissenting information about the Australian Government. We intend to fight this fight to the end and do everything in our power to get our domains back. We are currently in the process of obtaining legal advice, but at present consider our case to be strong and intend to update this page with further information as it becomes available...

Hi Jo,

Further to our telephone conversation:

I have been informed that Sapia has been issued with a notice requesting that we furnish further details of our eligibility to hold the 'stephenconroy.com.au' domain name. We understand that the deadline set for reply to this notice is 1700AEDT Today.

We feel that we are able to successfully prove compliance with the criteria, however, feel that the deadline in which we have been requested to do so is manifestly inadequate. In order to give us time to adequately prepare a brief of supporting information and to obtain appropriate legal advice we request this deadline be extended to COB Wednesday 23 December.

We understand the requirement for enforcing this criteria and endeavor to do everything possible to make this process as fluid as possible. We look forward to your reply, and should you have any further questions or comments please feel free to contact me on any of the below numbers.

Their reply:

We have considered the response below which does not provide us with any explanation as to eligibility for the names. On that basis it is our current position that the registration of stephenconroy.com.au, stephen-conroy,com.au, senatorconroy.com.au, stephenconroy.net.au, stephen-conroy.net.au, senatorconroy.net.au breach the Domain Name Eligibility and Allocation Policy Rules for Open 2LDs (2008-05) at http://www.auda.org.au/policies/auda-2008-05/.

We note that you have requested an extension of time to provide an explanation. We would have expected that an explanation could be provided immediately given that on registration of the names you warranted that you were eligible. On that basis we are not prepared to grant an extension of time past 5 pm today.

Accordingly, unless a satisfactory explanation is provided prior to 5pm today, the domain names will be placed into policy delete.

However, it is important to note that the domain names will remain registered to Sapia for the 14 day pending delete period and that we will review our decision if you provide us with information to demonstrate your compliance with the policy rules. Obviously you will need to provide this before the end of the pending delete period.

Regards,
Chris XXXXXXXX
CEO - auDA
au Domain Administration Ltd
ceo@auda.org.au
www.auda.org.au

We then sent the following reply and await auDA's response:

We feel strongly that auDA has acted in a particularly heavy-handed manner which is inconsistent with other arbitration instances we've become aware of. We feel that we requested fair and reasonable time to make representations regarding our eligibility and that you have policy-deleted the domains without fair right of reply.

We can not locate anything in the document you've referenced indicating that our registration was in any way invalid. Can you please point us to the exact section you feel we have breached. Also please provide us with detailed information regarding what you feel we need to provide to remediate the issues.

It is our opinion that were the domain in question something like 'johnsmith.com.au' auDA's response would have been in no way as severe. We feel that auDA has acted politically due to the nature of our site.

We look forwards to your written reply.

Make of that what you will, but personally I find it potentially worrying. It's not unusual for the great and the good to have sense of humour failures. Nor is it unheard of for them to try and stifle opposition or criticism. But the fact is that this guy and his boss want to bring in legislation to give them much broad censorship powers while promising that legitimate dissent and criticism of the government will not be affected, and before the filter laws are even in place this happens. If that indicates the thinking and attitude of those behind the big push for censorship I'm not exactly optimistic.

Meanwhile the so called Clean Feed is coming under fire from a former High Court Judge who notes that this may be the thin end of a nasty wedge.

Former High Court judge Michael Kirby has criticised the Federal Government's internet censorship agenda, saying it could stop the "Berlin Walls of the future" from being knocked down.

...

In an interview with Fairfax Radio this morning, Kirby said some circles feared the controversial policy would be "the thin end of the wedge of the Government moving in to regulating the actual internet itself".

"Once you start doing that you get into the situation of Burma and Iran where the Government is taking control of what people hear and what information they get," he said, adding that Australia's approach hadn't been attempted anywhere else in the world.

...

Google has also entered the debate, saying yesterday the scope of the content to be filtered went too far beyond child pornography and that the "heavy handed" approach would restrict freedom of expression.

"Refused Classification (or RC) is a broad category of content that includes not just child sexual abuse material but also socially and politically controversial material - for example, educational content on safer drug use - as well as the grey realms of material instructing in any crime, including politically controversial crimes such as euthanasia," Google Australia's head of policy, Iarla Flynn, said.

"This type of content may be unpleasant and unpalatable but we believe that government should not have the right to block information which can inform debate of controversial issues."

...

"It was through 'public complaints mechanisms' like the one Conroy is proposing, that classic literature such as The Catcher in the Rye, Ulysses and The Story of the Kelly Gang were once banned in Australia," GetUp said.

Conversely, the Australian Christian Lobby has said it wants the filters broadened to cover all X- and R-rated content on the internet, with people having to opt-in to receive this material.

At this special time of year it seems only appropriate to say 'fucking god botherers'.

3 comments:

microdave said...: ""Once you start doing that you get into the situation of Burma and Iran where the Government is taking control of what people hear and what information they get"

25 years ago I was a regular shortwave radio listener. Radio Australia was my favourite, and lead to me visiting the country twice. At that time the Russians and other Soviet Bloc countries used to jam Western transmissions. But thanks to the unpredictable nature of radio the truth usually got through.

It seems as if things are now heading the opposite way....

I don't think my Icom is going to be disposed of just yet!; 19 December 2009 at 07:02
Alex said...: Well, I was trying to show the .com.au domain name to some friends but saw that it was shut down. A simple google search pointed me to this site.

Upon reading your email correspondence it seems pretty clear that Conroy's team have been working hard in light of the SMH article. Talk about cowardess and knee-jerk reactions from the Conroy camp...pretty pathetic in my eyes.

Keep up the good work. You have obviously hit a nerve and the reaction from Conroy was exactly the kind of thing the majority of people would love to use as ammunition against his ridiculous censorship vendetta.; 19 December 2009 at 17:27
Angry Exile said...: Upon reading your email correspondence it seems pretty clear that Conroy's team have been working hard in light of the SMH article...

Keep up the good work. You have obviously hit a nerve...

Not my work, Alex. I'm just an ex-pat Pom who finds the way Australians are treated like kids by their own government pretty depressing and Conroy's (I suspect) religiously driven desires to censor everything he doesn't like an abuse of his position. I'm all up for supporting those responsible for www.stephenconroy.com.au and telling anyone who wanders over for a look at my blog about it and what looks like Conroy's attempts to censor that too, but the credit for what's on that site is all theirs.; 19 December 2009 at 18:01