A few more interesting sites to watch and posts to read:
Election 07 Norg is a Perth based citizen journalism site with a focus on candidates.
Another Brisbane based group blog! Greens member Sam Clifford has set up Public Polity. And another Brisvegan blogger (and Facebook friend of mine and sometime drinking buddy), Elliott Bledsoe, has entered the lists with daily commentary including a YouTube watch and a useful compilation of promises.
Meanwhile, over at New Matilda’s PollieGraph, there’s more on the regressive nature of the Liberals’ tax cuts and Ben Eltham reveals why they’re unlikely to shift the youth vote towards the Tories. And with religion and politics making an early entry into the campaign stakes with Four Corners’ revelations about the Exclusive Brethren, Emily Maguire examines their shenanigans through the prism of Tony Abbott’s astonishing comments:
A political argument is not transformed into a moral argument simply because it’s delivered with an enormous dollop of sanctimony. That can often be the problem when religious people start dealing in politics.
A classic case of projection, some might say. But it’s not just the famously “wet” Catholic social justice groups and Bishop Manning of Parramatta who’ve been questioning the morality of WorkChoices. The most conservative Anglican Archbishop in the country, Sydney’s Peter Jensen, has proclaimed Australians to be “ready for change”. At citizen journalism central, YouDecide2007, Graham Young has been chatting to Brisbane churchgoing Anglicans about whether they agree with him.
At Hoyden About Town, tigtog links to a powerful piece from Marieke Hardy’s hero, Bob Ellis, on Howard and war without end. Ellis is writing at the ABC’s Unleashed, where there’s an interesting mix of commentators. I’ll be joining the gang over there next week when I get back home from my impending trip to Adelaide, where I head tomorrow. I won’t be posting much while I’m gone, so enjoy the circus!
Thanks for the plug, Mark. I sometimes still can’t believe people actually watch my LJ.
likewise, thanks mark. but not the watching my blog part, because no one reads it :p
I read it now!
Just sayin…
Ah SANCTIMONY, eh? Pass the sanctimony, Monsignor, please….
You know, I hear as much pure sanctimony from political true believers as from religious believers. I read it in LP, hear it on the airwaves, read it in the MSM papers. And I’m sorry, but I don’t find religiously-based sanctimony any more offensive than politically-based sanctimony. [And I'm not asserting that all political blind faith is a product in later life of a religious upbringing in childhood.]
As far as I can see, political faith is often as groundless (and potentially dangerous to other human beings, and to human reason) as religious faith.
Both types of faith can also inspire acts of selfless devotion and love; so I can’t scorn the whole lot.
“Sanctimony” is a topic well worth sifting, I think. Apologies for my sermon. Apparently it’s not highly thought of, to “moralise” when posting on LP. Yet many posterpersons seem to do so.
Strange.
Thanks for the link Mark – should point out that our election site has a national focus – not only Perth.