Archive for April, 2005

What’s The Matter with Government?

Published
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Mark
3 years, 7 months ago
in Politics and Sociology
. 16 Comments

Last year, in the wake of the US election, the blogosphere spent much energy debating Thomas Frank’s thesis that working class Republicans voted against their economic interests:

Thomas Frank, author of What’s the Matter with Kansas?, noted in the April issue of Harper’s Magazine, that the poorest county in the United States, Loup County in Nebraska, “a region of struggling ranchers and dying farm towns” gave George W. Bush a majority of over 75% in 2000. Frank writes:

“When I told a friend of mine about that impoverished High Plains county so enamoured of President Bush, she was perplexed. “How can anyone who has ever worked for someone else vote Republican?”, she asked. How could so many people get it wrong? Her question is apt; it is, in many ways, the pre-eminent question of our times. People getting their fundamental interests wrong is what American political life is all about. This species of derangement is the bedrock of our civic order; it is the foundation on which all else rests.”

He goes on to say:

“If you earn more than $300000 a year, you owe a great deal to this derangement. Raise a glass sometime to those indigent High Plains Republicans as you contemplate your good fortune: It is thanks to their self-denying votes that you are no longer burdened by the estate tax, or troublesome labour unions, or meddlesome banking regulators. Thanks to the allegiance of these sons and daughters of toil you have escaped what your affluent forebears used to call “confiscatory” income tax levels. It is thanks to them that you were able to buy two Rolexes this year instead of one…”

However, reflecting on my professed support for non-authoritarian and participative administration, isn’t it possible that poor people in late modern States face a culture of control and coercion from Government? A culture of surveillance and harrassment from authorities of all kinds - cops, social workers, welfare bureaucrats? Anyone had much to do with Centrelink or the Job Network lately? Maybe there’s some reason in the appeal of the small government message to those who are burdened with mutual obligations?

Addendum: Some clarification of the argument of this post in this comment.

Just Say No, Kids

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Mark
3 years, 7 months ago
in Politics and Sociology
. 32 Comments

More on the failure of abstinence based sex education in the States - the Village Voice reports:

a study published in the journal Pediatrics found that 20 percent of ninth-graders surveyed had engaged in oral sex and 14 percent had had vaginal intercourse. The study confirmed what Oprah, Dr. Phil, and other major media personalities have called “an oral-sex epidemic” among kids as young as 12. It’s certainly alarming for parents that children are beginning to sexually experiment at a younger age than their generation or mine. Researchers concluded: “That so many adolescents are having oral sex and view it as safe, perceiving little or no risk resulting from engaging in oral sex, stresses the importance of needing more research on oral sex transmissibility rates and increased health education about oral sex.”

What’s more troubling is that this study was released in a year when the federal government will allocate more money than ever‚Äîabout $130 million‚Äîto “abstinence-only-until-marriage” sex education in schools. There are no comparable funds for other kinds of sex ed curricula. A recent study by Yale and Columbia researchers found that teens who take an abstinence pledge are more likely to engage in sexual activities other than vaginal intercourse; members of this same group were also less likely to use a condom in their first sexual experience and less likely to get tested for STDs. In an earlier study, the same research team found that 88 percent of teens who took the pledge had vaginal intercourse before marriage.

Thus, the unintended consequences of the Bushies’ faith-based reality. It’s symptomatic of a broader problem - symbolic policy making in the name of “values” and sending messages to the “base”, with no real attempt to grapple with actual social trends and the outcomes of faith-based policy:

We continue to do a great disservice to the teenagers in this country when it comes to sex education. The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate and teen STD rate in the Western world. Teenagers are having sex. Teenagers are licking pussy, sucking cock, munching ass, finger-fucking, dry humping, and buttfucking. George Bush wants them to practice abstinence. Well, abstinence-only education sucks. When we deny that young people are sexual beings, withhold information and resources from them, and narrowly define sex to exclude all possibilities but one, we contribute to a new generation of sexually illiterate adults.

Surely it’s ironic that abstinence-educated teens have ended up with the same definition of sex as Bill Clinton:

According to a 1991 study that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association last week, a majority of college students have a similar definition of sex to the famous one drafted by the lawyers for Paula Jones — the definition under which President Clinton famously said, No.

Of the 599 students surveyed, 59 percent answered “No” when asked, “Would you say you ‘had sex’ with someone if the most intimate behavior you engaged in” was oral-genital contact, according to researchers with the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction.

In the past year [1999], Clinton’s lawyers have defended him against charges he lied in his deposition in the Jones lawsuit when he denied having sex with Monica Lewinsky — even though they had oral sex.

“It’s not the same as sex,” UI junior Peter Alexander said. “It’s less personal.”

Elsewhere: Tim D has some news on some more horrors caused by the anti-sex ed crowd.

“I Want to Simplify My Life”

Published
by
Mark
3 years, 7 months ago
in Culture
. 8 Comments

Paris is burning.

Anglo-Celtic Dreaming?

Published
by
Mark
3 years, 7 months ago
in Culture, Politics and Sociology
. 88 Comments

There’s been some discussion of my reference to Anglo-Celts on my previous post about sectarianism and history where I wrote:

One of the great right-wing myths is that Australia was some sort of Anglo-Celtic homogenous country prior to Calwell’s post-war immigration programme. Not true. Simply false. Ask the descendants in Queensland of South Sea Islanders, the Chinese diaspora, the Jewish community, and the Germans.

Perhaps some clarification is in order. It depends on how you define “homogenous” which as I suggested implicitly, is a very loaded and politically charged term. Certainly in some states there was more ethnic diversity than others. And at different times - the White Australia Policy was itself a response to a growing Asian and South Sea Islander population - and as importantly to fear of its further increase. I think the politically salient nostalgia often overlooks this - as if there was never concern about the outpost of Empire under the Southern Skies maintaining its purported “homogeneity”. Ethnicity is not something purely defined by descent - it’s as much to do with culture and perhaps most importantly identification. Concepts of ethnicity and the social cleavages it creates are highly historically variable (and often very quickly so). In Nineteenth Century Australia, for instance, much conflict existed between British born people (the majority for many decades) and “native born” Australians - often simply referred to as “Australians”. Hence the Australian Nativist League and similar organisations which complained about domination of the professions and politics by Britishers. Mostly, this is forgotten now and the Australian minority vs. British majority distinction makes no sense in our society. Similarly, as I’ve argued here and earlier at Troppo, the term “Anglo-Celtic”, just like “Judaeo-Christian”, is of recent coinage and only started to have meaning after the sectarian conflicts between Irish Catholics and British Protestants lost salience - perhaps partly in the face of large scale non-British immigration, which produced another outgroup of “New Australians”. There may well be those who identify as Anglo-Celtic now but there would have been very few 50 years ago given the social and class cleavages reinforced by the Church’s ban on mixed marriages. And the identity itself didn’t exist.

I remain convinced that discussion of an “Anglo-Celtic” ethnicity and culture, whether consciously or not, is motivated largely by a conservative desire to protect the homogeneity that is wrongly identified with an Australian identity.

Elsewhere: More on imperialism, ethnicity and power at m c gregg’s place.

Cat People vs. Rotweilers

Published
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Mark
3 years, 7 months ago
in Miscellaneous and Religion
. 10 Comments

Perhaps I was too hasty in identifying cultural sectarianism as the cause of the unreasonable level of vitriol generated by the election of Pope Benedict. Maybe it’s the age old dog person vs. cat person thing:

“Oh, cats,” she said. ” He loves them.”

She pointed up a staircase to a wall full of painted plates, each depicting a different cat. The brothers collected the plates together, she said.

“When we were on vacation, a cat, a little kitten, would come by, and he’d be giddy, almost giggling with joy,” she said.” Cats love him; they always go to him straight away. And he loves them back.”

He doesn’t have a cat, however. Heindl doesn’t think he can have one living in the Vatican.

“He was always content to play with the street cats,” she said. “I don’t know much about Rome, but I know there’s no shortage of cats there.”

Benedict still owns the house he bought on the edge of Regensburg in 1970, but he visits only a couple times a year. The city adjusted his deed this week: It now lists the owner as “Holy Father.”

On Thursday afternoon, Chico the cat - perhaps the closest thing there is to The Pope’s Cat, strolled from the shaded arch between the pope’s front door and his garage. Chico belongs to Rupert Hofbauer, who looks after Benedict’s garden and home.

“Chico is his friend, though he scratched him over Christmas because he didn’t want to go outside, all day or night, and the cardinal tried to put him out,” Hofbauer said. “They usually get along well, though.”

Banana Republicanism?

Published
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Mark
3 years, 7 months ago
in Culture, Life, Politics and Sociology
. 2 Comments

Brian Costar makes an excellent point about the blogosphere’s new hot topic, Joh, in The Age today:

Under Bjelke-Petersen Queensland seemed like a separate nation. The “Queensland is different” mantra became the accepted wisdom.Yet Bjelke-Petersen was more than just the product of Queensland’s particularism. By exploiting and exaggerating traditional Queensland separatism he crafted a political environment that sustained him. Ironically, the economic and social bases that underpinned “Queenslandism” underwent significant change during the Bjelke-Petersen era.

The state became wealthier, better educated, less rural, and its population grew rapidly as a result of interstate migration.

Most importantly, its economy diversified from the dominance of primary and extractive industries to include a vibrant tertiary sector. All of this occurred on the watch of a Country Party premier.

The political effect of these changes did not become fully apparent until after Bjelke-Petersen had been removed. In fact, right up to his demise Queensland exhibited some features of “Banana republicanism”.

Bjelke-Petersen’s contempt for Parliament and the conventional constraints on executive power was notorious and, when he effectively awarded himself a knighthood in 1984, the official citation’s reference to his belief in parliamentary democracy was risible.

In fact, under his near-two-decade rule Queensland came as close to an authoritarian state as could be imagined within the democratic Australian federation.

Costar argues that Bjelke-Petersen’s modernisation of the state undermined the social basis for his rule, and for its “difference” from other states. There’s no doubt that’s true with regard to urban Queensland in the South-East, and the place certainly has a very different feel from how it did even in the 80s, but I’d question whether the distinctive political culture of Canberra-bashing, agrarian socialism and government by mateship has disappeared. It still plays well in the regions, and the traditional strong leadership theme is very much incarnated by Peter Beattie, buttressed by an overwhelming Parliamentary majority. Nor - in great contrast to other states - did we ever really do privatisation here. Is Queensland still different?

I can remember being in Adelaide just before the 2001 election up here, and explaining to people that Beattie would win in a landslide despite revelations of dodgy electoral practices in the ALP and a CJC investigation. Beattie almost ran against his own party, and embodied the persona of the strong Queensland leader prepared to cleanse the Augean stables even at his own cost. Particularly when the National Party destroyed Rob Borbidge’s campaign by contradicting him on preferences to ON, it was a lay down misere. The South Australian folk were rather puzzled. Reasonably?

Update: m c gregg has an interesting post with interesting comments on Brisbane in the Joh era and after, which reminded me of my Troppo post on the ghosts who haunt the Valley. Warning: a number of limes died and gins were consumed during the writing of the latter post.

We Shall Overcome!

Published
by
Mark
3 years, 7 months ago
in Politics and Sociology
. 5 Comments

Republican Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist, is continuing his campaign to entrench the new American theocracy by threatening the “nuclear option” to change Senate rules to prevent filibusters. Presently, the Senate enjoys the privilege of unlimited debate, and “cloture” can only be invoked by a vote of 60 Senators. There are now 55 Republican senators.

There are a number of ironies. First, as The Daily Kos reports, Frist has previously voted to continue a Republican filibuster against one of Clinton’s judicial nominees. As noted at Obsidian Wings, only 10 of Bush’s 119 judicial nominees have been blocked by the Senate.

The second is that the filibuster was vigorously opposed by liberal Senators in the 50s and 60s because of its use by Southern Democrats as a weapon against civil rights laws. Republicans are being somewhat specious in claiming that the struggle to “preserve a Christian nation” through a God-fearing judiciary is analogous.

Political scientists in the 50s and 60s wanted Congress to be more like a Westminster parliament with clearly defined party programmes, more block voting, and the removal of rules designed to protect minorities and ensure checks and balances. Be careful what you wish for.

Elsewhere: More over at Irant’s place.

The Compleat Imbiber

Published
by
Mark
3 years, 7 months ago
in Culture, Life and Politics
. 35 Comments

A few comments threads, as Rob Corr noted in his subsequent post on the beer map, segued into discussion of beer over the weekend - perhaps not surprisingly for a long weekend!

This reminded me that years ago in the Brisvegas of the late 80s, the beer people drank at Uni was very much determined by politics. The (unlamented) Powers was brewed at Yatala at a non-union plant, so was the drink of choice for Righties just as they were always to be seen in polos, baggy shorts and deck shoes. XXXX was then owned by Bondy, who was thought to be rather dodgy. So VB it was - a union brew!

I think it was all they stocked at events such as the Labour Day after party and 4ZZZ market days.

Even now, many lefties of my vintage still drink the stuff. Fortunately, I’ve weaned myself off it, helped by the fact that so many more varieties of beer are now available at most pubs and bottlos. Back in the old days, pubs were either Carlton or XXXX affiliated and though theoretically required to sell the rival beer at the bottlo, would normally have one warm carton. This is definitely one area of life where competition has been a good thing!

I’ve rather gone off chardie lately too. Pinot is the new chardie! Are there still distinct alcohol tastes for people of differing political complexions, I wonder?

Lesbian Chic, Orange County Style

Published
by
Mark
3 years, 7 months ago
in Politics and Sociology
. 30 Comments

Fans of The O.C. (that’s just about everyone, isn’t it?) will know that Marissa has just shared a girl2girl kiss on Valentine’s day with her new friend, Ms Blonde Modelesque Lesbian. In the wake of LA Law, Neighbours, Party of Five, Ally McBeal, ER, etc, etc, is there still reason for Mischa Barton to describe the kiss as “shocking” and “risky”?

Go watch The L Word, darling! Or read Dykes to Watch Out For.

Personally, I’m much more interested in the unresolved sexual tension between Argyle boy Seth and broody boy whatshisname.

Dispatches from Johburg

Published
by
Mark
3 years, 7 months ago
in Life and Politics
. 7 Comments

Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen has died, provoking two very passionate but quite opposed posts from Andrew Bartlett and The Currency Lad.

I don’t feel inclined to write about his life or his politics at this time, but LP readers might be interested in these dispatches from Johburg from my time over at Troppo.

A Star Rises in the East?

Published
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Mark
3 years, 7 months ago
in Politics, Religion and Sociology
. 19 Comments

Michael Carden at Poustinia argues that the key to the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI will be found in moves to reunite the Catholic Church with the Orthodox.

Michael suggests that the “rigid opposition” to women priests is partly a factor of keeping open the path to reunion with the conservative Churches of the East. However, as he also notes, as celibacy is not required for priests in the Orthodox churches, reunion would in turn lead to a Roman re-evaluation of this question. He also makes the good point that as the EU expands eastward, existing pressures for the recognition of women’s equality and for the human rights of queer people will gather momentum in Orthodox countries. As Michael says too, Benedict might bring about the “end of the Roman Catholic Church (as it would also be the end of the Eastern Orthodox Church)”.

But didn’t Cardinal Ratzinger contribute to JP2’s total ban on women priests?

Yes, but not in the way that people think. As more evidence emerges that Ratzinger as Prefect of the CDF was a moderating influence on the late Pope, it’s worth re-examining this question.

Sandro Magister makes this point:

Another point on which the new pope did not agree with John Paul II was the “mea culpas.” Many other cardinals disagreed with these, but said nothing in public, with the sole exception of the archbishop of Bologna, Giacomo Biffi, who set down his objections in black and white, in a pastoral letter to the faithful of his diocese. Ratzinger voiced his criticism in a different way: in a theological document that responded, point by point, to the objections that had been raised, but in which the objections were all elaborately developed, while the replies appeared tenuous and shaky.

Ratzinger, in other words, a very clever man, was (un?)subtly dissenting from JP2 while appearing to support him. Magister’s article registers several other points of difference, and the tone of Benedict’s words and actions so far speaks to a desire to differentiate himself from JP2.

The Vatican, it should be noted, moves very slowly (by design) and always seeks to appear to avoid contradicting itself (the reason why against expert advice from his own panel, Pope Paul VI restated the ban on contraception).

In 1995, Ratzinger sought to clarify JP2’s 1994 Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis on the ordination of women by issuing a document called Responsum ad Dubium. This document claimed that the Pope’s teaching was infallible. As Jesuit Father Peter Burns notes, the argument quite conspicuously failed to establish that JP2 had met the conditions for infallibility laid down by Vatican I.

If Ratzinger was capable of publishing an official document which in effect dissented from Papal teaching but appeared to support it, then this may well have been the case in 1995 as well. Benedict himself couldn’t do it, but a future Pope could “discover” that his argument on infallibility - when a Cardinal - was in error. The lack of argument in the text is also significant, as is the fact that other articles thought to be by Cardinal Ratzinger justifying it were unsigned.

I’ve mentioned before that interpreting Vatican statements is akin to an exercise in Kremlinology. It’s also worth noting that Catholic teaching often shifts subtly without being trumpeted - for instance, the Church no longer teaches that the sole purpose of sex in marriage is procreation but this is rarely highlighted.

It won’t happen in Benedict XVI’s papacy, and it won’t happen until there is communion with the Orthodox Churches, but it’s arguable that a future Pope could permit the ordination of women.

I hope also that a future Pope will recognise the human rights and dignity of queer people.

We’ll see.

Update: 4 Corners tonight will be about the Conclave.

Elsewhere: More on the Conclave at Southerly Buster.

I Can Take or Leave it if I Please…

Published
by
Mark
3 years, 7 months ago
in Politics and Sociology
. 1 Comment

There’s been something of an interesting rhetorical shift since the beginning of the second Bush administration. For a few years after s11, we heard about nothing else other than the War on Terror. We also began to hear about Empire and its virtues. In Australia, Keith Windschuttle told us how liberal and civilised the British Empire was. British celebrity historian, transplanted to America, Niall Ferguson told us how the British Empire had fulfilled its civilising mission, and how the American Empire could do likewise. Turning our backs on a secular trend towards self-determination and decolonialisation, the world apparently considered whether “liberal Empire” was necessary after all, and Empire became the flavour of the month in Neo-con journals.

The War on Terror, we were told, was urgent, part of a clash of civilisations, and would not end in a hurry. Indeed it seemed unending in prospect.

The 1990s, in turn, had been full of discussion about humanitarian intervention and national sovereignty, and in America, the legacy of Vietnam. The Powell Doctrine evinced scepticism about using America’s military might, and the Kosovo War was hailed both as humanitarian war and the triumph of the Revolution in Military Affairs - War at a distance, with no casualties for the American forces. It was thought that the American public would not support wars which caused American blood to be shed.

Strangely, when the War on Terror began, it was the first proclamation of war where the American President failed to call for sacrifice. Instead, we were to be vigilant but full of consumer confidence, and taxes must come down.

Now all we hear about is spreading freedom and democracy. Empire is no longer in the headlines. Who now cares if Osama bin Laden is captured? Could it be that discounting the degree of actual sacrifice among US veterans and the real costs of unending War no longer worked? Could it be that War had domestic costs after all? Could it be that something more meaningful than defence against an unquantifiable threat and the reinforcement of hegemony was needed as a justification for blood and tears and broken lives?

Enter America’s democratic mission.

None Dare Call It… Irony

Published
by
Mark
3 years, 7 months ago
in Miscellaneous and Religion
. 11 Comments

Apropos of my earlier post on Dan Brown, St. Malachy and conspiracy theories involving the Catholic Church, it now appears that two books by Cardinal Ratzinger have knocked the nemesis of all things Vatican, The Da Vinci Code, off the top of the bestseller charts at long last.

Obviously the way to capitalise on the Papal election was not to put a bet on with Irish bookies, but to be an ecclesiastical publisher who’d signed up Pope Benedict XVI as an author when he was still Ratzy…

Passionate Centrism?

Published
by
Mark
3 years, 7 months ago
in Politics
. 58 Comments

On the theme of passion, Nicholas Gruen has a good post on his political position at Troppo - Nicholas is a conservative liberal social democrat! I think Nicholas has done a fine job of summarising key elements of the three now current mainstream political ideologies. I’d add that support for democracy is a faultline running across all three - there can be authoritarian conservatives, liberals and social democrats. Hayek, for example, is a liberal whose attachment to democracy is pretty rudimentary, as a reading of The Constitution of Liberty makes clear.

Liberalism and Social Democracy are heirs of the Enlightenment, and both juggle the complementary but competing emphases on liberty, equality and solidarity or intersubjectivity in different ways. The “big government” identification of much Social Democratic practice often leads to the eclipse of liberty - but it need not. Though my position would be different in a perfect world, in an imperfect one I’m happy to have an ideological starting point of Social Democracy with an emphasis on non-authoritarian and participatory policy and governmental practice.

The big question that has to be asked about centrism is - can one be passionate about it? This confronted the founders of the British Social Democratic Party such as Roy Jenkins. Jenkins argued that there was a centrist majority in the country, but his dream was shattered through the electoral system that tended to polarise voters between Labour and Tory (both arguably fairly extreme in the early 80s - prompting many to believe in a centrist revival). Similarly, the influence of grassroots supporters, shifts in regional support (particularly in the South) maldistribution and the narrow electorate in primaries, and other factors have radically narrowed the space for centrism in American politics - polarising the Republican and Democratic parties to a much greater degree than used to be the case.

Is it possible to get passionate about centrist politics?

PhD.org

Published
by
Mark
3 years, 7 months ago
in Culture, Life and Sociology
. 0 Comments

Continuing something of a theme, and also the Online Opinion theme of the value of blogs and internet sociality and interaction, I’m posting to draw attention to an article in the Village Voice about academic blogging, and in particular these remarks:

“It takes a certain kind of style, patience, and openness to non-specialists,” explains Jay Rosen, associate professor at NYU’s journalism department and author of the influential media blog PressThink. “You actually have to communicate with the public. It’s really for those who want to enter into public debate somehow, and despite all the blather you hear about ‘public intellectuals’ there are very few academics who want to do that.”

Say you’re already a public intellectual. Why start a blog? “I started blogging because I wanted to understand it,” says Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig, who blogs at lessig.org. “I write about the intersection between technology and policy, and this is an important intersection to understand.”

Lessig found that blogging opened up his sphere of interaction considerably. “I’ve published a bunch of articles in law reviews, and I think I’ve gotten maybe a total of 10 letters about them in the history of my career as an academic,” he says. “I publish stuff on the blog, I get literally hundreds of e-mails about things all the time.”

If I remember correctly from a previous thread, Nabs is having lunch with Lessig soon. If he’s reading and wants to do a guest post to report back, he’s most welcome.