There's medals and medals

If anyone deserves a medal this man does:



He's the splendidly named Captain Chesley B Sullenburger 111.

The man who safely landed an Airbus with 155 people on board in New York's Hudson River.

What I think is an astonishing photograph shows just what he did:


Reuters photo

All 155 people walking out of the aircraft into waiting rescue boats.

Mind boggling.

But more than that, he's described by a friend as one of the last American gentlemen.

I can believe that because he demonstrated old-fashioned values, values which are so important in a civilised society but which are much derided these days.

Ability, professionalism, responsibility, concern for others.

Not only did he safely bring the plane down, he made sure the passengers and his crew evacuated safely - then he twice walked the length of the aircraft to make sure that everyone was safely out. Only then did he leave the aircraft.

I thought such values were all-but dead but Capt. Sullenberger restores my faith that maybe we haven't totally lost them.

Anybody want a role model? Forget entertainers and footballers and 'celebrities', this is the kind of role model we need to get society back on track.

I don't know what awards he'll receive but whatever they are they aren't enough.

But then there's the other side of awards.

Just a few days ago the worst-ever American president presented his country's highest civilian honour, The Presidential Medal of Freedom, to two of his cronies.



Photos: Ron Edmonds/AP and Reuters

Tony Blair, ex-UK Prime Minister and John Howard, ex-Australian Prime Minister.

Both almost equally awful as leaders of their countries as Bush has been. Three men who demonstrate values which are the opposite of Capt. Sullenberger's.

The White House spokesman said: "The president is honoring these leaders for their work to improve the lives of their citizens and for their efforts to promote democracy, human rights and peace abroad"

Oh really?

They supported Bush's catastrophic adventures in what was childishly named the Coalition of the Willing, causing untold damage to the world and to their own countries' reputations and standing.


BLiar, all spin and no substance, an unwarranted belief in his own importance and influence, the lies about Saddam and nuclear weapons, incompetence at home and abroad. Eventually, in spite of winning elections and thus keeping them in their lucrative jobs, his own MPs got sick of him and threw him out.

The world knows less about him so let me tell you about John Winston Howard.

Like Bush, Howard pursued extreme right wing policies and seriously damaged the reputation of a great country. Even more than Bush and BLiar, he was exposed many, many times lying to both parliament and the people. His strategy was wedge politics, dividing people as much as possible making it easier for him to retain power.

He put selfish personal ambition and the drive to hang on to power above all else. Above his party, his country, the people.

Like Bush he appointed a whole bunch of incompetent and extremist people to his government, several of them even more vindictive than himself. Australians will remember ministers such as Vanstone, Downer, Ruddock, Reith.

Often asked questions which would have been embarrasing to answer Howard's stock response was 'I find that question offensive' and he'd stalk off.

We had his mistreatment and vilification of asylum seekers, his so called 'Pacific Solution' sending them to spend years in prison camps in small island nations we paid to take them.

We had the deliberate lies and doctored 'evidence' of 'children overboard' when Howard condemned the “sickening behaviour” by asylum seekers of throwing children overboard into the ocean. In fact they were fleeing a sinking ship, parents trying to save their children first as confirmed by the Australian navy's HMAS Adelaide. It was just before an election so he used the lies in his campaign, based on 'not the kind of people we want here' and 'we decide who comes to this country'.

We had black-clad goons wearing balaclavas accompanied by very large dogs attacking striking wharfies on the docks, something Australians never thought we'd see.

We had the mistreatment of individuals through Howard's misuse of his draconian terrorism laws, such as Doctor Haneef, which I posted about earlier, here, demonstrating the spite and malice of his government.

He made lying by public figures acceptable, he made it acceptable to take no responsibility, he made it acceptable to blame others, he led the charge in our plummeting standards of decency and honesty, he made it acceptable to claim credit for things which in reality were other people's doing.

He encouraged a climate of selfishness, paranoia, of bigotry and racism.

He took the country to war against the wishes of the majority, he subjugated Australian policy to that of the administration in America.

He frittered away our money on vote-buying handouts while the country's infrastructure fell apart.

And his main claim to success, the booming economy and low interest rates, was almost entirely due to his predecessors and world events and nothing to do with Howard or his Treasurer Costello.

The boom began two years before he won power, started by IR changes the previous government put in place not by Howard's policies. It continued with the demand from China and India for Australia's raw materials - nothing to do with Howard but he claimed credit for the booming mining sector.

The boom continued because his government used the same disastrous strategy as most of the world, with the government living beyond its means, in effect running up credit card bills with no thought for tomorrow, by keeping interest rates artificially and unsustainably low, by encouraging the population to keep spending beyond their means. Huge trade deficits were built up, budget surpluses were frittered away buying votes by giving billions in handouts to voters before elections instead of the money being invested in the country's future.

Eventually the electorate realised what an appalling leader we had and his party was decimated in a general election. The final ignominy was that Howard lost his own seat in that election.

Three leaders without whom the world would have been a much better place, thankfully now gone but the damage they've done will be with us for a long, long time.

If only we'd had leaders for the last decade with Capt. Sullenberger's attributes.