Race Riots Erupt in Sydney

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TRACY BOWDEN: It started out as a show of solidarity against gang violence on one of the country's most famous beaches but the drunken rampage at Cronulla yesterday has shocked the nation. Police and ambulance officers were pelted with bottles as they tried to protect beachgoers of Lebanese or Middle Eastern appearance from the fury of the mob. In all, 16 people have been arrested, while more than 20 were injured. First, this report from Jonathan Harley - and I should warn that it contains strong language.

ISSA: I always go to the beach. Family, you know, cousins, whatever, friends. I just didn't expect that to happen, you know. It's just a normal day for me to go down to the beach, you know.

JONATHAN HARLEY: It was a disastrous day to be Lebanese and to go to the beach. Eighteeen-year-old Issa is so shaken by his experience yesterday and the possibility of reprisals, he wants to be known by his first name only.

ISSA: Then I got smacked from behind and then everyone just started throwing punches, bottles. I fell to the ground. Everyone just kept kicking me, kicking me. One bloke - Aussie bloke, see, not everyone's the same - he got on top of me and goes, "Mate, I'm just protecting you, just wait, just wait". He was just protecting my head and that. And like I've got my eye here, and all my neck through to, like, halfway down my back, got bruises on my body. It's not something I expected.

JONATHAN HARLEY: Unwittingly, he was heading directly into a drunken storm, an incendiary combination of booze, twisted nationalism and naked racism.

ISSA: People who've got anger towards - it all comes back on terrorism, we're terrorists. While I was in the crowd people were yelling, "Watch out he's got a bomb, he might blow himself up. What are you doing in the middle of the crowd? Have you got a bomb?" That's what they were saying. I'm not a terrorist. I'm nothing near that.

JONATHAN HARLEY: The day started with a carnival-like atmosphere but it was almost inevitable that this show of strength would descend into violence. And while bigotry may be age-old, this baying mob was called to arms via the most modern of means. For days, text messages had been circulating which could leave no-one in any doubt as to the intention of the day and the sentiments of those organising it. One message read: "F***ing Aussie in the Shire get down the north Cronulla to help support Leb and wog bashing-day. Bring your mates down and let's show them that this is our beach and they're never welcome back. F***ing Lebs/wogs. Let's kill the c**ts. Tell everybody, spread the word. Fire up Aussies. Sunday midday, don't forget. Forward this to all you know and help us..."
Australian Broadcast Company, December 12, 2005

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Race Riots Erupt in Sydney

Category: CIVIL UNREST

By: Pete Kendall, December 12, 2005

Shades of 1968
The last time we had a market environment similar to that of today was 1968.
The Elliott Wave Theorist, November 2005

But social mood in Australia, as measured by its major stock average, has been rising fast. The S&P Austrailian Stock Exchange Index is up 75% since March 13, 2003, just a few points from it's all-time peak of November 22. Our best guess is that the xenophobia and rioting is a similar manifestation to the rioting in France, which we covered on November 8. The parallel social trend is the civil unrest that accompanied the transition from a frothy speculative peak in 1968/1969 to the bear market of the 1970s. Back in 1968, the riots were largely peaceful anti-war protests. This time the strictly exclusionary nature of the rioting probably speaks to the higher degree of this trend change.

Additional References

The Elliott Wave Theorist, November 2005
The last time we had a market environment similar to that of today was 1968. There were riots at the Democratic convention, anti-war protests, fighting in Vietnam, runaway spending and anti-Johnson sentiment, yet the economy was expanding as the market was going up, led by small-cap stocks, which brought the Value Line (geometric) Average to a new all-time high. This time, there are riots in France, protest marches in South America, a war in Iraq, runaway spending and anti-Bush sentiment, yet the economy is expanding as the Value Line Arithmetic average is not far off an all-time high made two months ago. This parallel is showing up in the press. According to Richard Maybury, “By the end of his first term, Bush’s presidency saw the biggest increase in discretionary spending since Lyndon Johnson’s in 1968.” The riots in France are “the country’s worst civil unrest since the student uprisings of 1968.” Says a headline this week, ”America’s Attitudes on Iraq Similar to Vietnam.”

Seventeen months after the market peaked in December 1968, the Dow had lost 1/3 of its value, and that was within only a Cycle degree bear market. This one is two degrees larger. When the market turned down in 1968, the news did not improve; it got worse. At the climax of negative mood, just days from the bottom of wave C of that bear market in May 1970 and in the midst of a year-long recession, members of the National Guard shot protesting students at Kent State University. We cannot consider the idea of the market forming even a temporary bottom until an economic contraction is in force and news is worse. I cannot imagine such a time being less than a year and a half away. In the meantime, if the Dow has finished a triangle and is now in a rally to a new three-year high, the bad news may briefly abate somewhat before worsening.

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