Archive for May, 2007

Cum prophetia defecerit dissipabitur populus qui custodit legem beatus est

Published
by
Kim
1 year, 6 months ago
in Culture, Federal Elections, Howardia, Life, Politics and Sociology
. 42 Comments

Or, Does the country really change when the government changes?

Tim Dunlop at Blogocracy is encouraging some folks to participate in a sort of round robin blog q&a. So here’s my contribution in response to Tim’s question:

The Question: Tim Dunlop’s question for this first outing was: “My first question is picking up on something said by both John Howard and Paul Keating, namely, that when the government changes, so does the country. Both made the comment at a time when it looked to them like they might be about to lose power and so there was, of course, a sense of warning in their observation. So that’s my question: Does the country really change when the government changes?”

My Answer: Like the question, the biblical verse which I’ve used as a title for this post tends to recur in political discourse at times of change, frustration and aridity. For obvious reasons:

When there is no vision, the people perish.

That’s the accepted rendering, but it’s actually a pretty rough translation from the original. The Vulgate gives a much better sense because it’s clear that prophecy and prophets are what give sustenance to the people. And so it’s interesting to note that this quote, often used against George Bush the First, and picked up later on by Al Gore, has some resonances with Keating’s insight, which in itself was a prophecy. And one which has been fulfilled. The question can be turned around, then - is it true, as Geoffrey Serle asked in a book written in 1973 very much concerned with the Australian spirit, that “from deserts the prophets come”?

That question was answered in 1992, by another Australian academic and cultural theorist, Boris Frankel, who wrote a book ironically entitled From Prophets the Deserts Come.

Continue reading ‘Cum prophetia defecerit dissipabitur populus qui custodit legem beatus est’

Time for a new defence white paper

Published
by
Robert Merkel
1 year, 6 months ago
in Foreign policy, Policy and War
. 33 Comments

Maybe I’m just not seeing the revolutionary part of the Australian Defence Force’s new Joint Operations Doctrine, which, according to the head of the ADF Angus Houston, describes “how we will fight in the future”. Try the following:

In Future Warfighting Concept 2003 the ADF adopted Multidimensional Manoeuvre (MDM) as its approach to future warfare. MDM seeks to negate the adversary’s strategy through the intelligent and creative application of an effects-based approach against an adversary’s critical vulnerabilities. It uses an indirect approach to defeat the adversary’s will to oppose us. MDM becomes reality through the application of tailored strategic responses to achieve the desired effects. A fundamental of MDM is the ability to employ NCW and operate in joint task force, interagency and/or coalition arrangements to conduct effective operations.

Translation: we’ll trying the same essential trick that every military theorist since Sun Tzu has recommended, but this time we’ll send out the orders by email.
Continue reading ‘Time for a new defence white paper’

Charity Stays at Home

Published
by
Gummo Trotsky
1 year, 6 months ago
in Developing world, Levity and Politics
. 9 Comments

In today’s Sydney Morning Herald, Debra Jopson reports:

MORE than $600 million of Australia’s foreign aid over the past two years never went overseas but was swallowed up in the coffers of a small Federal Government agency in Pitt Street, Sydney…

New analysis by a Sydney-based watchdog contends that a third of the $3 billion being spent on foreign development assistance this year is really phantom aid which either never leaves our shores or has been directed away from poverty alleviation programs overseas.

Almost $1 billion which the Government has identified as official aid is being spent on programs in which no new money flows to the countries said to be getting it, Aidwatch says in a report to be released today.

Continue reading ‘Charity Stays at Home’

3000 votes: Boot Howard out of Bennelong

Published
by
tigtog
1 year, 6 months ago
in Federal Elections and Howardia
. 27 Comments

I like this local initiative from some voters in the Prime Minister’s electorate of Bennelong, whose major slogans are:

A Future without John Howard? It all hangs on 3000 votes.

Just because Howard is the PM, doesn’t mean he has to be our MP.

Campaigning for Fresh Apples in Bennelong

There are apples all over the 3000 votes website - the Granny Smith apple is the emblem of the greater Ryde area, which is most of the seat of Bennelong, so the locals are familiar with the symbology.

At the upcoming 2007 Federal Election, the residents of Bennelong face a simple choice. To re-elect our incumbent MP and PM John Howard only to have him step down twelve months later if the Coalitions wins (or to step down 12 minutes later in the likely event Labor get up) or to cast their vote with another candidate and save themselves the inconvenience of a by-election.

Bennelong voters are also faced with some slightly more complex choices. Do we, as a socio-economic and cultural microcosm of Australia, wish to endure more of the same tired, outmoded rhetoric and policy spearheaded by John Howard or do we desire change and a forward-thinking approach to government?

3000 Votes is a non-partisan campaign formed by a group of young Bennelong residents who do desire change. We, as the adult children and teenage grandkids of the baby boomers understand that it will be our generations who suffer most from the Howard Government’s years of skepticism and inaction on climate change and it is our peers who are most vulnerable to John Howard’s ‘WorkChoices’ legislation.

And that’s just for starters.

The articles on the campaign skew youth and Green-ish, which may not be to all potential Bennelong voters’ taste, but with a bit of luck the message that it will only take 3000 votes to unseat Howard will nonetheless ring loud and clear to all. Onyas.

crossposted from Hoyden About Town

Selling for a Reiny day

Published
by
Phil
1 year, 6 months ago
in Ethics, Federal Elections, Politics and Relationships
. 80 Comments

Thanks to a premature discussion, the Rudds are now gonna put a little money in the bank politically.

Therese Rein has opted to sell the Australian arm of her business and in the process bought Labor some sweet political capital. Their handling of the situation has effectively blunted any real attack the opposition Coalition may have planned on this issue, it’s now all about ethics, transparency and openness.

This was less about IR and more about conflict of interest, something that would have been addressed anyway if and when Rudd became PM. Now the decision has been brought forward to great effect.

Despite some efforts to paint this as a major hypocrisy the Rudds have won the day in terms of political impact.

If anything, this only confirms that Rudd is more than ready to run the country, and in the process we may get a bonus for Australia in the Lodge, a thoroughly modern couple combining brains and brains.

Discuss, in the Rudd/Rein post Larvatus Prodeo had to have.

If it’s too good to be true…

Published
by
Bernice
1 year, 6 months ago
in Economics and Markets
. 16 Comments

A week is, apparently, a lifetime in politics. It’s an eon in the market mindset.

Marj is set to leave Qantas, hand in hand with James Packer. Despite the entire board’s insistence that a failure by the APA bid would see the share price fall, instead it has risen. Geoff Dixon, as wedded to the APA buyout as Marj, is now the shining knight of a revitalised Qantas with a revised profit forecast and a new OMO bright vision of a corporate future full of vim and vigour.

Macquarie Equities aviation analyst Andrew Wilkinson released on Friday morning an upgrade of the 12 month price target for Qantas shares to $7.05. Note key words – Macquarie and $7.05. How odd- that’s $1.60 above the APA offer price. A $3.1 billion loss to shareholders had the bid succeeded.

Goodness gracious. All in the same week that the SMH revealed that James Packer had sold his 1 million Macquarie Bank shares in January & February. After the APA bid had begun, and after Marj had fiercely stated that it was wicked to suggest that Mr Packer had any conflict of interest & would most certainly not be withdrawing from the discussions about the bid.

Continue reading ‘If it’s too good to be true…’

Sunday Spruiking: the snark edition

Published
by
tigtog
1 year, 6 months ago
in Miscellaneous
. 16 Comments

A few weeks ago, I read this in comments at Pandagon, from one emjaybee, and it still makes me chortle:

Camille Paglia is the Crazy Cat Lady of feminism.

What the hell, I’ll stick with the feminist snark: here’s ginmar’s take on a film called Dragonstorm, a made-for-cable fantasy from 2004.

The castle looks suspiciously concrete-like and the costumes look Halloween-ish, and the hero has a Heroic Mullet that just screams: He’s supposed to be the eye candy for this flick! Be afraid, be very afraid! Oh, yeah, and there’s a feisty girl who you also get the sinking sensation is supposed to be the love interest for Mulletman, thereby producing a scary crew of mullet-headed kids for God-awful sequels.

I think she nails a film that I haven’t seen, but when IMDB sez

If you enjoyed this title, our database also recommends:
Reign of Fire | Mars Attacks! | The Mummy Returns | Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace | Spawn

you know it’s got to be pretty dire.

So, what’s the best snark you’ve read lately? Epigrams, rants, comics, polished satires, the works. It doesn’t need to be feminist, that was just my pick for the week: I just want to see someone mockworthy mocked mercilessly. Sock it to me.

Remembering the 1967 Referendum

Published
by
Brian
1 year, 6 months ago
in History and Indigenous
. 21 Comments

Australians generally resist constitutional change - but not in 1967.

On May 27, 1967 90.77 per cent of Australians - the biggest majority ever in a national referendum - voted to amend the 1901 Constitution as it pertained to Aboriginal people.

Put simply, the referendum proposal asked if clauses should be removed from the Constitution which impeded the power of the Commonwealth in Aboriginal affairs, and secondly, if Aboriginal people should be ‘reckoned’ in the census.

The 1967 Referendum might be a ‘highly-charged myth’, invested with more symbolic than practical meaning but to many of the people who were there, it continues to be a defining moment in the history of black-white relations.

That’s how the indigenous arts and issues program Awaye! (Listen up) introduces their program The time was ripe: remembering the 1967 Referendum to be broadcast on Radio National this afternoon at 6pm to be repeated on Monday at 3pm.

Continue reading ‘Remembering the 1967 Referendum’

The urban|rural divide

Published
by
tigtog
1 year, 6 months ago
in Urbanism
. 20 Comments

LP missed the big day, but 23 May 2007 was calculated as the day when for the first time in history the world’s urban population outnumbered the rural population.

Although rural natural and social resources are necessary for urban people and places, the researchers say rural people do not fare well relative to their urban counterparts. Maps of U.S. quality-of-life conditions show that poverty and low education attainment are concentrated in rural areas – especially the rural South – where the nation’s food, water and forest resources exist.

Over much of the globe, rural poverty is much worse than in the United States. Findings by the International Fund for Agricultural Development show that 1.2 billion of the world’s people live on less than what a dollar a day can buy. Globally, three-fourths of these poor people live in rural areas.

The researchers add that, in addition to having a highly disproportionate share of the world’s poverty, rural areas also get the urban garbage. In exchange for useable natural resources produced by rural people for urban dwellers, rural places receive the waste products – polluted air, contaminated water, and solid and hazardous wastes – discharged by those in cities.

So, I’m an urbanite. I suspect many LarvyProdders are as well. What is your response to the above press release?

Saturday Salon

Published
by
Kim
1 year, 6 months ago
in Miscellaneous
. 63 Comments

An open thread where, at your weekend leisure, you can discuss anything you like.

Mal Brough sucks them in

Published
by
Robert Merkel
1 year, 6 months ago
in Howardia and Indigenous
. 20 Comments

For a moment, there, the government’s appalling record on Aboriginal affairs was actually getting some attention. But, no, with a bit of misdirection and goading we’re back to normal service.

Mal Brough is proposing compulsory English language education in remote Aboriginal communities. Call me naive and ignorant, but I thought English language education was already compulsory - the problem is that that compulsory education is not being delivered effectively. There’s no doubt that preserving what remains of the various indigenous languages is important (as Andrew Bartlett was discussing recently) -however, the idea that English language fluency is an essential skill is one that’s pretty well impossible to argue with.

But Brough’s remarks were carefully calculated to goad people into disagreeing with him, and several bunnies lined up to do so:
Continue reading ‘Mal Brough sucks them in’

The Great Global Warming Swindle

Published
by
Robert Merkel
1 year, 6 months ago
in Climate change, Environment and Politics
. 94 Comments

Maybe the ABC board did push management to show this “controversial” documentary about global warming. Maybe they didn’t. I don’t know. What I am pretty sure of is that the program itself a dishonourable beat-up, as explained by George Monbiot here in The Age, and also here and here on the RealClimate blog if you want more details.

Andrew Bolt is rolling around in ecstasy over this, but he’s kidding himself. For what it’s worth, I think it’s too late for the greenhouse deniers - their efforts have indeed delayed action for a decade, but the game is up. The publicity surrounding the decision to screen has probably had the counterproductive result of ensuring that a) it was impossible for the ABC to bury this nasty little doco, and b) ensured a much bigger audience (in exactly the same manner as banning Ken Park - a terrible film - ensured that film a considerably wider audience). But, frankly, they’re getting to the point that they have the same amount of credibility as the people who reckon the moon landings were faked. The infamous Fox TV documentary on that topic didn’t do any lasting damage to space exploration, intensely annoying though it was. And that’s the level of credibility the denialists have reached.

Or is the real worry the thought of Albrechtsen and Windschuttle throwing their weight around on other issues where their lunar right views are not quite so trivially easy to refute?

UPDATE: ABC managing director mounts a a fairly predictable defence based on the requirement to show a diversity of views. Hat tip to Gummo Trotsky.

A long time ago…

Published
by
Shaun Cronin
1 year, 6 months ago
in Culture and Film, TV, Video etc
. 24 Comments

Well just three decades really. And not so much in a galaxy far, far away but in just 32 theatres in the US on May 25, Star Wars made its cinematic debut. At that stage no-one had any idea what was to come.

Taking bits from Joseph Campbell, Akira Kurosawa and the stylings of World War II dog fights, created a cultural phenomenon that shows no signs of slowing down - even after the atrocious to middling “prequels.” It is hard to believe that the same person how gifted us Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and half of Return of the Jedi also tormented us with half of Return of the Jedi, The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. Oh, and the Star Wars Holiday Special. Forgotten that one, hadn’t you?

While there have been better science fiction movies, none have ever approached the giddy, wondrous sense of adventure that characterised Star Wars. It is a movie that has transcended cultures and generations.

But instead of heavy going critical analysis (you can do that in the comments if you like) I’ll simply relate a tale of seeing Stars War just a decade ago.

Continue reading ‘A long time ago…’

Work

Published
by
Mark
1 year, 6 months ago
in Industrial Relations, Notices, Policy and Sociology
. 12 Comments

It’s very pleasing to note some publicity for the launch last night of the new Centre for Policy Development, which featured a blistering attack on Howard’s (lack of) liberalism from Julian Burnside QC. The Centre is a new think tank which developed from New Matilda’s policy portal and its aims include to:

combat the myth that we have no choice about the policies that affect our lives, by exploring new approaches to the relationship between governments, markets, society, and the environment.

I’m very chuffed at becoming a Fellow of the Centre, and the project I’ll be working on will contribute to the Work, Family and Care stream of the Centre’s research.

Continue reading ‘Work’

Missing Link not missing

Published
by
Mark
1 year, 6 months ago
in Culture and Notices
. 1 Comment

Just a quick notice for fans of the regular round up of bloggy goodness that is Missing Link to let folks know that despite problems with their email version, it’s still going strong despite techy hangups and can be read over at Troppo.