The incoming US Ambassador said this.
“I want to get out across the entire continent of Australia” to say that “it’s OK to disagree with this US policy or that US policy but still be pro-American because we have so much in common.”
Cool, hopefully he’ll let the Australian right wing echo chamber and keyboard kommandos know about this. So now that we have permission from our colonial master to be dissenting pro-Americans where shall we start?
Elsewhere: Guy at Polemica comments seriously.
I’d say it’s the responsibility of all right-thinking LPers to copy and paste this quote and send it off to all our favourite RW columnists immediately…
It’s a no-brainer. We could start by saying we agree with the 63% of US citizens who know that Bush is an idiot.
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_4262135
They’re my kind of folks.
Trackback.
Gotta love these sorts of “buddy of the Prez” appointments. Certainly makes us feel a bit like a satellite state.
Please define “…colonial master” and how America ‘controls’ Australia?
the pavlovian response to the ambassador reveals the loopiness of lots of us – he is saying the reality of our nations – there is nought wrong with admiring the USA and its people, they have a hell of a lot more in common with us than most anyother place in the world. And “the buddy” principle is pretty much the way alp tweedle dee and lib tweedle dum appoint ambassadors and UN reps. ect.
We certainly do have a lot more in common with the United States than most of the rest of the West so far as our historical experience goes. One of the most prominent is our resentment at being treated as lesser beings expected to suck up to either authority or claimed superiority, which is precisely where America falls over.
There are lots of practical reasons for Australia to maintain a cooperative relationship with America, but some kind of normative servility isn’t one of them. It’s as inappropriate to Australian culture as it is to American culture.
Well OK you dissenters where will you start?
Nice of them to finally bother appointing one. Only took them two years.
Yeah, we’re a big priority. That’s how much they respect us in Washington.
Well if you’re unhappy with the current knucklehead, I’d certainly be willing to fill in the slot. Let me just check my calendar for the next six or eight years… yep, it oughta be no problem.
Write to your government, and demand me for ambassador! I can’t promise terribly competent diplomacy, but at least the embassy barbecues will be a bit more colorful…
For my first diplomatic initiative, I will pronounce that every Monday night will be Russ Meyer Cinema Night at the US consulate! In order to promote, y’know, mutual cultural understanding and what-not. Plus, mock 18th century sea battles — you guys versus New Zealand! How’s that for a platform?
Perhaps I’m showing my bad memory for history, but JPZ, you’d not only have to mock the battles between Aus and NZ, but you’d have to make them up in the first place. Wouldn’t you?
I vote for JPZ. I want an ambassador who turns up, like Bill Burroughs – with two ampules of laudanum and a dozen amyls; or Hunter S. Thompson, with a pint of raw ether and a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, ready to party. Send Dr Benway, now! Or Bukowski, reading ‘Born into This’, chugging a third pint of red at the National Press Club. Or one of the surviving members of Jefferson Airplane, or Grateful Dead. Hell, even HP Lovecraft.
Thats MY America! I salute it. Where are you people hiding? Get out of the demi-monde, into the light again. Why do you keep sending us right-wing freaks to look at? …. there’s your PR problem right there.
Or least Uncle Duke\’s tenure in Western Samoa.
But yes, we do want and need a US Ambass that can respond appropriately when John Gorton climbs over the embassy wall with bottle and bird in hand at 2am. Actually a PM like that would also be nice too again.
Michael, look up the Maori Wars.
I once had high hopes of Alexander Downer to fulfil all of the debaucheries of his class, and looked to him for intercontinental disgrace—but alas. Only the usual political shit.
\”I once had high hopes of Alexander Downer to fulfil all of the debaucheries of his class\”
Hah! He\’s from Adelaide. His idea of being a merry swingeing U hoon is wearing a CIA sweatshirt while jogging very slowly. The black stockings were a one off. He no longer has the balls from which they could be suspended now.
Lets face it, the closest Aus came to an Alan Clark was John Gorton and in this overcontrolled, overspun age we\’re not likely to see their like again soon, more\’s the shame.
Everyone:
When are we going to get a professional-service officer as U.S.Ambassador instead of the usual dills, dropkicks and political cast-ooffs? Oh, that’s right, colonies get only Governors and Residents, not Ambassadors.
Why don’t we try breaking off formal diplomatic relations with the United States and then having contact with the United States through the Embassy of their N.A.F.T.A. partners, Mexico? After all, we have been blessed in Australia with excellent representatives in Canberra of the United Mexican States. Viva Mexico!
Grace Slick almost got to the White House. She was invited as an alumna of the same College as one of the Nixon daughters. (Weird, huh?) Perhaps wisely, Grace decided to take a bodyguard — Abbie Hoffmann!
The goons didn’t recognise Grace, but they did know Abbie. They were both denied entry. A pity, because Grace intended to drop LSD into the Nixon’s teapot.
If Grace were US Ambassador to Canberra, maybe she’d do us all a favour and drop acid in the Rodent’s water bowl.
Then he could share the bad trip that he’s been giving us for the last decade.
Jeebus, Nabs. How pissed were you last night?
I like the notion of a diplomat who really knows how to exploit immunity. Bottle in one hand, glass in the other, bon mots all round.
Diplomacy is just the ability to hold your piss and operate ceremonial ribbon-scissors, isn’t it?
Yeah, what was with all the back slashes?
Speaking as a dual Australian/American citizen, all I can say is hoorah!
Seems like the major complaint is that Australia is not particularly important to the US. Unrequited love!
..or lovers bawls
j-p-z:
Since the U.S. still thinks Australia is too unimportant to have a professional service officer wasted on it …. the short-listing for a replacement U.S. Ambassadoor (as soon as we can get first class seats booked for Return-To-Sender) is down to only two candidates: you …. or Monica Lewinsky (Why not? She would make a better job of it than some of the duds we’ve had inflicted on us).
Rog:
I’m one of the fast-dwindling minority who still believes Australia-U.S. relations are important. However, the Yanks believe otherwise and one morning they will wake up and find Australia against them too …. and be dumb-struck at how such a thing could possibly have happened without any warning whatsoever (except all the warning-bells, flashing-lights, klaxons, sirens and so on they studiously ignored for a couple of decades).
The big test of US-Australian relations will arrive when a choice has to be made between the stratego-military relationship with the US and the commercial relationship with China.
At the moment, in addition to bases, eavesdropping and the UKUSA relationships, Australia serves as a convenient hood ornament for US Humvees that roll into various Middle-Eastern misadventures.
Unlike many other US hood ornaments, however, Australia pays for the privilege.
It’s hard to predict exactly how China and the US will come into conflict. But it is almost inevitable that they will.
So far, China has extended its commercial reach into the world with enormous subtlety, welcomed by host nations and avoiding offending the US. China’s relationship with Australia is a good case in point.
Moreover, the Bank of China is a major purchaser of US debt, smoothing the pillow of the US as it dreams its consumerist dreams.
The most obvious flashpoint, of course, is Taiwan. But with things going so well economically, the Chinese government seeks to keep cool.
But the US always has the option of turning up the heat over Taiwan. The issue serves as an indicator of US aggressive intentions toward China. So far, the Bush Administration has also sought to keep the Taiwan issue at well below boiling point.
One point worth noting is that even if China were to renounce communism tomorrow, China would remain a strategic rival of the US, as is post-Communist Russia. This isn’t about ideology, it’s about access to markets and resources. and it’s about strategic control.
The Australian market is trifling. However, our resources are alluring. And as in WWII, Australia is close enough to Asia to be useful to the US.
But if China simply wants to pay top dollar for our stuff and to become partners in developing Australian infrastructure, why should Australia be anything but welcoming to China?
Greetings, future citizens of resource-rich Southern Ocean New Settlement Province!
We heartily agree that this disgraceful “Australian”/S.O.N.S.P. toadying to the imperialist Yankees must stop. Furthermore, we guarantee that future toadying to the glorious People’s Government in Beijing will be easy, convenient, and painless. After all, we’ve been in this business for 4,500 years; long-term, we’re the experts. Heck, you’ll barely even know it’s happening. How do you know it isn’t happening right now?
Once this messy little Taiwan thing is out of the way, then we can get settled down to really *talking*. We’d like that. Wouldn’t you?
Aussie Buddies!
Don’t listen to the People’s Republic of China. You know how violent and aggressive they are. Look at the number of countries they’ve invaded compared with the peace-loving USA! They’re dangerous because they’re so sneaky!
They want to come to your country and buy your stuff. That’s disgraceful. And what will you get in return? Money! That can’t be good for you.
Do you know what’ll happen if this keeps going on? The PRC will have the biggest economy on earth, and they will have done it without firing a shot in anger! That’s an attrocity!
The New American Century has spent squillions–Chinese squillions!–producing the biggest and best weapons systems of earth. Why doesn’t the PRC fight fair and try to take us on? They’re cheats.
I’m taking all my toys and I’m going home.
Then you won’t have any fun, will you?
Katz:
That choice was made a decade ago …. the Chinese won, unobtrusively, unhurriedly but they still won, regardless of what performing circus animals in Canberra might say or do. Taiwan is a Chinese problem that will be sorted out by Chinese in a Chinese fashion; meanwhile both sides of the Strait are using American and Australian perceptions of what’s going on there to further their own interests.
A more worrying question for Australia is – if push came to shove – which side would the United States be on in any irreconcilable conflict between Australia and Indonesia, should such ever occur?
I agree that it is government policy to give great priority to Australia’s relationship with the PRC, even in the face of US unhappiness.
However, I believe that Australia has yet to confront an important decision that forces it to choose, in the face of strong disapprobation, between the PRC and the USA.
That day will be a bad hair day in Canberra.