“A defeated army learns quickly,” so the saying goes, “but only if it realises that it has been defeated.”
The evidence of today’s morning broadsheets suggests that some battalions of Australia’s intellectual Right are learning faster than others.
In the Opposition Organ, Tony Abbott’s sock puppet, in the course of a snarky column on Robert Manne’s edited collection Dear Mr Rudd, repeats the tired line that last year’s Federal election represented some kind of Culture War victory for the Right. The OO editorial is virtually identical in substance and style.
Writing in The Age, John Roskam of the Institute for Public Affairs takes quite a different view. According to Roskam, the Liberal defeat of 24 November has become a rout:
In the space of a few months the federal Liberal Party has reversed or abandoned its position on five out of six of the central policy issues of the Howard era.
One of the points at issue here (especially in the contributions by the OO and the Asp) is to what extent policy positions lumped into the boxes of “Left” or “Right” represent the values and beliefs of ordinary Australians. Successive Australian Election Studies and Australian Surveys of Social Attitudes, and other social attitude surveys, provide a mixed picture, suggesting that the Australian public is, in aggregate, strongly pro-environmentalist on climate change and forests, moderately but increasingly pro-feminist and pro-choice on gender issues, more social-democratic than liberal in economic sensibilities and on issues to do with education and health funding, more socially liberal than conservative on issues to do with sexuality and the family, but more conservative than liberal on matters to do with race, immigration, schooling, youth, national security and law & order. However, on at least some of these issues (notably those to do with gender and the environment) the trend of public opinion over several such surveys during the life of the Howard government has been broadly away from, rather than towards, positions proclaimed by the Right.
The release of the Australian Election Study of the 2007 Federal election will provide an opportunity to establish empirically which way the punters’ positions were trending on all these issues from 1996 to 2007. However the ramping up of what Robert Manne calls “the interpretative pre-emptive strike” by the OO and the Asp could indicate that they are not expected good news from that quarter.
And, of course, the ongoing irrelevance of the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ muddy the analysis even further.
I really can’t tell if I’m left wing anymore. Or if the Labor party is. I can’t tell if the Libs are right wing because I have no idea what they stand for.
Looks like we are on the same wavelength, Paul.
That’s an interesting example of the theories tested by a Nolan Chart or a Pournelle Chart.
If you look at the issues as “Left versus Right” it is clear that according to the results (and bearing other studies in mind) “Left and Right” are not absolutes. So theoretically someone can be “Left” on the economy but “Right” on law and order.
So does that oblige a Labor Government to take a “generalist” approach if you like to reform, as opposed to an “absolutist” approach, which seemed to characterise, say, China under Mao?
Interesting post, Paul.
I agree that the election of Ruddlabor doesn’t represent a victory for the OO (nee GG) columnists. However, I also feel that Professor Manne and his co-contributors should not be immune from criticism.
I recognise you haven’t said this, BUT if anyone is in the business of saying that under the ALP his book (or previous books) are the “bees knees” in social critique or policy suggestions, I beg to differ. He’s a hard worker, Prof Manne, but IMHO he is prone, occasionally, to exaggeration and facile comments.
I may be in a tiny minority to express such ghastly views here, but that’s my tuppenceworth.
cheerio
And in practice many are. If they weren’t, many of the AES and ASSA findings over the years would be inexplicable.
An important point to remember is that the punters, by and large, don’t arrive at positions ideologically or in terms of a “master frame” of discursive articulations. For example, many parents of school-age children quite comfortably accommodate a “Left” view on school funding (i.e. the government should increase taxes on the rich and the big corporations to provide more funding for their local state school) with a “Right” view on issues like school discipline, curriculum and teaching methods, school uniforms, etc. If there is anything which is central to the difference in mindset between the “masses” and the “elites” (the latter including Albrechtsen, Manne, Roskam, the OO editor and myself), this is it.
The columnists of the OO are supremely arrogant to proclaim any victory on their part. They are insular, deluded ideologues, who, for the most part, peddle ideas so laughably flimsy that it’s a minor ‘victory’ that they get published at all. The few who could be regarded as successful would be the tabloid op-edders (such as Bolt), who at least reach a broad audience. If Sheridan, Albrechtson, Devine, et al, dropped off the face of the earth tomorrow, it’d be hard to imagine anybody remembering them in a couple of years time.
On the other hand, if Paul is correct in asserting that the public are becoming more ‘pro-feminist’, in favour of social democracy in economic matters, socially liberal, and , beyond that, against war in Iraq (and elsewhere) then we must conclude that both major parties do very little to actually represent this public.
This drift to the right by both parties ought not to be seen as a Culture War victory by the right, since arguably, this drift was well under way long before we had a clique of repetitious caricatures parroting each other through op-ed columns. Furthermore, the more plausible explanation for this drift is the way both major parties have been captured by the ‘big end of town’, and have little connection with any grass-roots politics. The big end of town don’t care any more for the warblings of Hendo than they do for those of Philip Adams.
“He’s a hard worker, Prof Manne, but IMHO he is prone, occasionally, to exaggeration and facile comments.”
Agreed.
I’m not a huge fan either, but here’s a message from Earth to Planet Janet - Robert Manne and David Marr aren’t “the left”!
Shanahan had two things in the Oz about Manne’s book yesterday - a “news” story on the front page and an opinion piece on page 2. Manne should give him a share of the royalties - probably no one would have noticed the book to anything like the same extent if it hadn’t been given this prominence.
Both contained an error of fact - that Rudd is opposed to constitutional recognition of Indigenous people. Actually, it’s the second task his bipartisan taskforce is going to work on. But I suppose Noel Pearson’s drivel about not believing Rudd before the election takes precedence over fact.
This is full of wrongness in so many ways.
(a) It’s a book, dude. People have the right to publish a book with policy suggestions. It doesn’t mean they automatically think the government will adopt them. It’s part of the “open debate” the culture war commentariat are always praising.
(b) They’ve been running this “culture war victory” line ever since the election. It appears to be largely addressed to themselves. Except when they’re attacking Rudd for calling for the culture wars to be over, and setting out the truth on Indigenous history, for example.
(c) Who the freak cares?
danke schoen, Klaus
(always a relief to find that “it isn’t just me”)
auf wiedersehen
I suppose everyone had a good chuckle at Albrechtson’s last two columns? They went from hilariously hypocritical (supported Howards upping of party contribution limit reporting, then whinging about NSW Labor’s current policy) to blind:
“Robert Manne wants public intellectuals to be included in the national conversation. Indigenous leader Pat Dodson wants the abolition of 99-year leases. Academic Mark McKenna wants a republic and a bill of rights. Clive Hamilton wants no new coal-fired electricity plants in NSW, traffic congestion tolls and huge spending on public transport.”
The first one, yeah, maybe. The rest, lol. Does she really have an issue with climate change… still?
I agree with Roskam that the Liberals have been routed. Right now they look a milion miles away from ever winning anything again - couldn’t even beat the trash that is Iemma et al.. I still for the life of me can’t understand why they all went in for the public bloodletting of the 4 Corners show of a week or so ago. Still, I guess they’re on a hiding to nothing for the first term, and just have to ride it out, get rid of Nelson and start to rebuild their credibility for a tilt in 2012/13. May as well clear the air now, which is the furthest they can ever be from government.
THR (post #6), I thought your first paragraph was pretty funny for something posted on a left-wing (or indeed a right-wing) blog. Most of what gets posted on LP falls into the category of ‘insular, deluded ideologues, who, for the most part, peddle ideas so laughably flimsy that it’s a minor ‘victory’ that they get published at all.’ (Except they don’t even get published).
Likewise, your comment ‘If Sheridan, Albrechtson, Devine, et al, dropped off the face of the earth tomorrow, it’d be hard to imagine anybody remembering them in a couple of years time’ could equally be applied to pretty much every blog poster in the country (with a much shorter waiting period).
And while it’s fashionable among certain elements of the left to call for a purge of the Australian’s op-ed page, personally I suspect that Janet Albrechtsen’s op-ed will have more influence on policy than the ‘Dear Mr Rudd’ book by Robert Manne and a gaggle of self-declared ‘leading public intellectuals’ that she was writing about. Kevin would have read her article over his Corn Flakes and come to the conclusion that Robert Manne and his right-on mates could stuff their ‘letters’ right up their fundaments. And thank god for that.
Personally, I couldn’t give a flying fuck who the Oz wants on their op/ed page.
But, Required, if you think Planet et al still influence government, you’re as delusional as they are. It’s a Labor government, dude. They owe the Oz absolutely no favours and have good reason to feel aggrieved about the snarky and hostile coverage they got almost all through last year. Planet et al are just bomb throwers on the outside now. Rudd has far cleverer people to turn to if he wants political advice - and I’m sure he doesn’t need to be lectured by Planet about what is and isn’t in his electoral interest.
You might also like to check out what Stephen Conroy (hardly a raging leftie) had to say about Howard’s appointees to the ABC Board in Senate Estimates recently.
The wisdom of Albrechtsen (from Paul’s link):
Memo to Janet: Ratty led the Libs to their most devastating defeat and lost his own seat in the process. What planet were you on during these glum events for the Right?
Speaking more globally as a left libertarian, I see little but sunshine from the Rudd ascendency. Rudd has recognised the ascendency of capital markets as well as the need for government to adjust itself creatively to that ascendency for the good of the country.
Rudd has also signalled that he will pull the plug on many of the populist and atavistic appeals to prejudice that so marred the Howard regime.
Chief among those are:
the nature of hte US alliance. The news that under Howard Australia committed troops to Afghanistan without demanding any voice at all in strategic decisionmaking should be deeply shocking to Australian patriots.
cooling of contacts with Christian enthusiasts.
curtailment of bribes to special interests, such as superannuants and persons seeking to own real estate.
So, on Planet
OrwellHumpty DumptyJanet, the words ‘intellectual’, ’sophisticate’, ‘thinker’, ‘passion’ and ‘imagination’ all have negative connotations: they have become insulting, derogatory and abusive words.Imagine what her positive ones must be.
Paul Norton
From my reading of Australian Election Studies and Australian Surveys of Social Attitudes, there is definitely a move towards “liberal” positions, but not the positions of LPers on matters of gender, climate change, etc. Australian’s are certainly supportive of old-fashioned equity feminism, but in no way would they endorse the “gender” feminism currently stifling the universities and school syllabus committees. It is this “gender” type of feminisn that is hegemonic on LP.
Paul Norton
but more conservative than liberal on matters to do with race, immigration, schooling, youth, national security and law & order
I’d be keen to know how you perceive “conservative,” “liberal,” and “left” positions for each of these issues. For example, I would categorise Australians as being very liberal on each of these.
wilful
There is absolutely still a very real “Left.” Much of it - such as LP - self-indetifies as such. However, I am unsure there is an effective “Right” in Australia.
Kim
Marr and Manne certainly are not “left” wing the way you and I might see the Left, but they are definitely on the Left side in the Culture Wars.
I have to say Required, you display a touching naivete about Kevin Rudd’s reading habits.
Rudd - like every MP - would have his breakfast reading bought to him circa 6am in the morning, directly from Media Monitors. Any article that mentions his name would come first, followed mentions of the government, mentions of the opposition, and mention of of his ministers, etc. probably in that order.
So yes, he would read Janet, but as for influence and media - like another famous leftish dude - he doesn’t inhale. And nor do any of us. I didn’t realise Kim was positing LP as a cornerstone of government consultation. You need to lay of the tin foil hats, dude, they’re getting in the way of you seeing the text.
Katz
Speaking more globally as a left libertarian, I see little but sunshine from the Rudd ascendency
Given that Rudd is a conservative neoliberal, you clearly are a very deluded boy!
I’m not, patrickg!
Come on, Jage, ain’t it time you dropped this rather vulgar fixation on ‘Teh Left’? It’s intellectually tacky, unbecoming, parochial…pissing your silky barbs away on a non-existent tarradiddle that really doesn’t deserve a second sniff from cultural nostrils as fine-tuned as yours. I’m rather reminded of Patrick White girding his mighty Laureate’s loins in his dotage to…what, march in the fricking streets like a common agit propper, dribbling on lovingly about Nifty - that ’second-rate provincial official’, as I think Humphries had it?
Your heart can’t be in it anymore, Jage. I’m thirty pages into Myra and I’m pissing myself. O yay ta for the recommendation, you old dog. But - dude! You’ve blown your cover, big time. If you think this is funny, you can’t possibly be the harrumping Strocchian drag-artist you pose as hereabouts!
Me, I think you’re an aesthetic libertarian agent provocateur. I bet you’ve got a double major in Cult Studs, too. You wily old mole, you…
One of us, one of us, one of us, one of us…
Jack R
Point taken re The Left. However, as I hoped my tone would convey, I am being very sincere here, and it is bang on the actual topic of Paul’s thread. I am not sitting here with an “answer” in my head, salivating ready to pounce when somebody gives a definition I don’t like.
You forget I myself used to identify as a socialist and marxist. I changed disgusted with the way, materialism was dropped for culture. On a self-publicised “Left of Centre” blog in the wash up of a change of government where notions of left, right, liberal, conservative were constitutive of the “Culture Wars” I think you might allow even ME a response to this question.
OK, now THAT’s off my chest!
I have always been stunned at this “Mini Jack S” label. I have no idea who Jack is, let alone met him. Is that his real name? But I understand where his riff is coming from. I don’t share all of it. In fact, the number of times we have even directly commented on the other’s posts you could count on one (well maybe three) hand.
Now, to more weighty matters. Myra/Myrone is an absolute hoot isn’t it!? I remember buying Clive James’ Unreliable Memoirs when I was about 18. The blurb said something ‘do not read this book on a train unless you want to embarrass yourself in front of other passengers.’ Luckily I read it on a country train that had toilets! Same with Myra.
Nah Jack, your peerless prose, unparalleled utterances and powerful punditry is wasted on a pimply dweeb whose somehow accidentally overridden the filters on the school computer.
Or do I detect the old glossus in the old bucca here?
THR at 6: “If Sheridan, Albrechtson, Devine, et al, dropped off the face of the earth tomorrow, it’d be hard to imagine anybody remembering them in a couple of years time.�
Terrible thing, THR, the lonliness of the long distance litho-lemming. However, with respect of your suggested Gravitational Imperative, the “face� of the earth doesn’t quite ring true.
Mais, quelle domage, just like heaven, their Project for a New Australian Century (PNAC) will have to wait.
Paul, like the toxic hissy-fit connotations of The Asp. Once a broadsheet taipan she was, but now, just another snake in the grass.
[It’s intellectually tacky, unbecoming, parochial…pissing your silky barbs away on a non-existent tarradiddle that really doesn’t deserve a second sniff from cultural nostrils as fine-tuned as yours.]
Jack, that’s awfully good. Snark sentence of the week!
wow, how angry and passionate is janet’s column?!?!
rudd and co need to pull their heads in with the ISP-level internet filtering. Such conservative stupidities make australia look really really bad.
Kim please stop beating around the bush and give us an honest opinion of your regard for Rupert’s opinion makers.
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Personally think that the right-wing editorials could be right. It’s really too early to tell. One thing that is certain is the ALP do not like being out of office and learn from past mistakes what not to do.
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Keating’s social agenda which, due to the postponement of his prime-ministership, was rammed thru very quickly, was undoubtedly behind Howard’s victory. People were tired of Keating. Like Howard v Latham, he probably mistook his victory over Hewson as an endorsement of him rather than a fear reaction to a possibly too-radical alternative.
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Howard like Rudd understood that getting elected meant stressing what people didn’t like about the incumbent and keeping whatever potentially unpopular reforms to himself. At the time of Howard’s ascension Australia had been thru massive social change lasting several decades and enjoying two peaks; the first when baby-boomers came of age in the late 60s/early 70s and the second when they assumed positions of authority en masse twenty years later. A lot of the ALP blue collar base were alienated first by the Hawkeating economic reforms (which were especially painful for them) and then by Keating’s preoccupation with the ‘luvvie’ type issues that stemmed from the New Left’s post marxist agenda that eschewed class politics for those of identity.
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Howard and his allies enjoyed a culture war triumph from ‘96 onwards on the basis of this dissatisfaction.
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But as with all entrenched governments they eventually became less aware of their vulnerabilities and became perceptibly more arrogant. Meanwhile a whole new generation had been coming of age. One that like the boomers and the X’ers was less inclined to conservative moral panic and likewise less inclined to carte blanche endorsement of associated positions like sucking up to the US or preserving white heterosexual hegemony. Workchoices was actually the reason Howard got the boot. The war only featured in so far as Howard couldn’t count it an asset anymore. Australians tend to prioritize the economy when voting.
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To what extent the concerns of Prof Manne etc will be addressed by Rudd remains to be seen. Kevvie has already shown that he will break the Left off something but how much is anyone’s guess. The role of public intellectuals that Prof Manne champions isn’t really the government’s business. I’d tend to stress a reversal of the draconian anti-intellectual tactics of Howard and a return to a more open society. This will allow the intelligentsia to express itself. But the onus is on them to be relevant.
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Given what I know about Kevvie tendency to be a control-freak I reckon we’ll see more of the same. Only the names will change.
I should add that the 99 year leases should definitely be abolished. It’s not even a left-wing issue. Granting such leases is a clear violation of the rights to property of indigenous peoples. The existence of such is racist pure and simple. Of course as usual with such normalized injustice it falls to the left to address it. If they’re successful no doubt the right will claim it their idea all along ten years hence.
I wonder if Albrectsen and co. have read the tilting at windmills scene in Don Quixote? or for that matter seen the Man of La Mancha. Hell, we all know Ruddland ain’t Camelot, but neither is id the Sweeney-Todd Barber Shop Howard had us visiting on a weekly basis.
Indeed. Over the years Manne has expressed views on a number of issues which were at variance with those of much of “the left”, and which he has not recanted (his support for stay-at-home mums comes to mind). At the time, and in the circumstances, of his departure from Quadrant magazine, his differences with the Right can best be characterised as thoughtful and decent democratic conservative dissent from anti-democratic, anti-rational and incivil New Right ideological gangsterism.
“Or do I detect the old glossus in the old bucca here?”
Why Sorcy, I dunno even know where StoushGym(TM) is…and that’s a Level Two unit at least, I heard.
Me, I’m just your average wysiwyg hillbilly conscript: expendable Kulcha (Un)War Canon fodder, good - if unreliably so - only for the full frontal rant-and-explode assaults on the hard points…
Paul at 27, I’ve always though Robert Manne was the John Gray of Australian politics/academia - a genuine conservative who became horrified by what those who go by that designation were doing. Although he now describes himself as a “social democrat”, I don’t see too much evidence of it. The common thread running through his writing is a concern about an overmighty state and in particular the rights of immigrants and refugees. I don’t see much about poverty, redistribution, economic issues, etc, from him - what I would characterise as the core business (yikes!) of social democrats and democratic socialists.
According the definition of social democrat as a person who advocates the use of democratic means to achieve a gradual transition from capitalism to socialism Manne isn’t one. Neither are many people in the ALP I’d wager. It seems to suggest some sort of second International Marxism and/or Fabianism. The notion of an inevitable transition to socialism is moot at the moment.
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On the other the idea of social-democracy as a market-economy with a certain amount of state regulation and welfare could include Manne. It could also include John Howard.
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He’s possibly best described as a conservative in the social-liberal vein. I don’t think he moved to the left. I think the spectrum moved to the right around him. That he’s persistently regarded as an avatar of the left by the Murdoch horde is possibly a strategic attempt to keep the left-drifting spectrum where it is.
I think it’s pretty clear from following the offerings of Albrechtson and Manne et al that ‘left’ and ‘right’ need a companion category to accommodate what passes as mainstream political thought these days, something like ’self-important navel-gazing drivel of little actual relevance to everyday political life’.
Any respect I had for Manne was rapidly eroded away by the beyond narcissistic, egotistical and interminable exchange between him and Milne about his (Manne’s) alleged activities, opinions and organisational memberships 30-40 years ago via Crikey, which inexplicably published it all. No. body. cares.
Its been an absolute BATH for the right since Nov 24. Kyoto, the apology, demise of Dorkchoices, associated daily LNP rollovers, indigenous opening of parliament.
An the rout isn’t over by a long way. These 2nd rate Culture War RSL columnists (eg Skanky Hobrechtsen, Sheridan et al) and writers (Windy, Paul Sheehan) will find times are very tough on a level playing field. Most of them actually aren’t good enough to cut it without a big nanny state behind them, slipping them board positions, hot tidbits, and funding, getting them to review ARC final list, and other forms of welfarism.
I think you mean “democratic socialist”, Adrien.
Paul,
You conveniently forget that Kevin Rudd was elected on a me-too platform on nearly every issue. So far he has kept most of his promises. As Tom Switzer pointed out a couple of months ago, it’s easy to see that the electorate has become more conservative. It really says something when Labor can only get elected when its leader can present himself as a younger verion of John Howard.
As for the Lib party’s policy reversals, some of this is due to the lack of confidence in a Government that has just been swept out of power. Labor did the same when Paul Keating was voted out, by adopting a protectionist/anti-market position. Needless to say, they were unable to get into office, in spite of the GST being presented befoe the electorate in 1998.
When you look at it, many Howard policies remain in place under Rudd Labor. The indigenous intervention, the GST, Telstra in private hands and tax cuts are still realities that the left will have to accept.
Those on the left who believe that Australian society is finally ready for a lurch to the left side of politics are guilty of wishful thinking.
As you should know from your observations of studuent politics, even students these days have little or no interest in refugee rights or getting worked up over the Iraw war.
I don’t know whether any culture war has been won or lost - I frankly find the term ‘culture war’ a bit silly. There is always going to be healthy debate between opposing views on the right and left - to describe this as a war is silly.
Australia has moved to the right in the past decade and a half and that’s the enduring legacy of John Howard. Rudd’s ALP is almost indistinguishable from Howard’s Coalition pre the last 3-4 years when ‘Howard hubris’ inevitably set in. So if that’s what people mean when they say a ‘culture war’ has been won - then perhaps so.
I continue to see references to Rudd’s apology to the stolen generation and the signing of Kyoto as evidence of a sweeping change in Australia. Many leftish commentators gush about washing away the Howard legacy.
Excuse me? What exactly has changed? Looking out my window - Australian values are exactly the same today as they were 5 years ago. One of Howard’s mistakes in his final years was in failing to recognise that saying ’sorry’ and signing Kyoto are totally compatible with Australia’s inherently conservative but centrist set of values.
The king is dead, long live the king - and let the debate continue, it’s what makes this country great.
Most of them actually aren’t good enough to cut it without a big nanny state behind them, slipping them board positions, hot tidbits, and funding, getting them to review ARC final list, and other forms of welfarism.
And it will take them several more years to cultivate unseemly personal relationships with cabinet ministers, as they did with the previous Govt, thus allowing them to pose as insiders whilst functioning as an echo chamber for Govt policy.
Think Dolly Downer and his ties with Sheridan and Bolt, or Milne’s trysts with Costello.
Not really. Here’s the definition. The phrase has two meanings as addressed above. You yourself associate the terms democratic socialist and social democrat: the ALP used the phrase “democratic socialist” to describe itself not so far back. I googled the definition and the first four defined social democracy in terms of a democratic transition to socialism. Only two included the ‘welfare state’ definition. Popularly it’s this latter definition which is commonly the understood one.
As truth is supposedly war’s first casualty I don’t think the term itself is silly. There has been a willingness on the part of Culture Warriors to ignore facts inconvenient to their arguments for the sake of asserting ‘thier’ version of history. You can tell as these versions are smooth with clearly defined good guys and bad guys. Real history is jagged and stuffed with well-rounded humans of dubious moral disposition. Heroes belong to fiction.
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Of course I can agree with you insofar as the Culture Wars themselves are silly.
Furthermore, the more plausible explanation for this drift is the way both major parties have been captured by the ‘big end of town’, and have little connection with any grass-roots politics. The big end of town don’t care any more for the warblings of Hendo than they do for those of Philip Adams.
Exactamundo. They.couldn’t.care.less.
Cultcha wars and the rest of the nonsense is just so much Spak Filla. Think ‘war of position’. The BCA has got the right end of the stick.
To whit-‘your predecessors were abominably careless with money, and despite our unaccountable failure to point this out to the government and the electorate at the time, despite our oft repeated commitment to the market place of ideas as the engine of all round improvement, we expect big and good things from you and we know we won’t be disappointed-or else’’-
Now that’s what I call a seamless transition process. Beeee-a-utiful.
If you want to know the next ‘big thing’ Australia has to do, in order to be /good/better/best, just be sure to read everything the smartest people in the room have to say. It’s always revealing if not always rewarding for the punters, but in the inevitable way of these things, if we can’t get the original, we can be sure Paul Kelly, ‘the most important person in the room’ will be pointing it out to us. I don’t know if I can stand another decade of ‘national improvement’ babble from that lot, but one thing is for sure. If Kevvie wants to be more than a one term government, he will keep that lot strictly at arms length, at least in public. Don’t want to alert and alarm the punters all over again, even if Paul Kelly is such a bore, you could bottle him and save the PBS a motza on tranquilizers.
Why do people call it the OO now? It’s still the GG - Murdoch’s just found a new client.
I think it would be wrong not to view Rudd as a populist. I think it’s one of his strengths, and one of the traits he shares with Howard. Rudd did with the apology what Keating never could - bring the country with him, gently. Convince the people that it’s what they want. Keating, bless him, never gave a damn. He did what he thought was right, and if you disagreed you were beneath him.
Care to provide a link, Kim?
Required at 11, not all blog posters take themselves as seriously as you do. Posting on blogs is diverting banter, not a stab at immortality. And literary immortality certainly eludes you, since you only regurgitate what you’ve read in some newspaper; (leftwing) intellectuals are barren elites, the left wants purges, Rudd is a conservative.
Do you have any ideas of your own? How about trying these instead; rightwing ‘intellectuals’ are out of fashion, Rudd doesn’t give a fig for what Planet Janet thinks, the Australian has manfully resisted the impulse to purge, and Rudd is a centre left politician who has rolled back labour market deregulation, ended the sinister Pacific Solution, endorsed Kyoto, tackled global warming, invested in public services and infrastructure, and is getting some sensible industry policies in place. Puzzling that Howard didn’t get around to all this, really.
This would make sense if voting were a matter of picking the one we like the most, Leon.
For the umpteenth time, the 24th turned out the way it did because for once, The Other Guy was competent (or at least successfully put across the image of competence).
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And how does policy convergence bear any relation to any possible shift of the political centre? Rudd’s continuation of many Coalition policies goes to show that Australians really just vote between competing administrative teams/programs attending the same legacy.
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Albrechtson isn’t an ‘analyist’ in even the loosest sense of the word; she’s a saleswoman. And she’s flogging a ‘94 Magna with one hubcap and off-milk-smell upholstery.
Don’t you mean “a younger version of John Howard except that he kept two ‘core promises’ in his first week in Parliament as Prime Minister, AND they were the two things Howard the Elder had been most stubborn and recalcitrant about: the apology to the Stolen Generations and the rejection of WorkChoices”?
The notion that a “social democrat” is not a “socialist” is simply wrong. It is a weasel term for a start. A “social democrat” is a socialist who prefers the parliamentary road to socialism, rather than the revolutionary road.
Still, a socialist is still a socialist.
The claim that “I frankly find the term ‘culture war’ a bit silly” is disingenuous. Since the 1980s, much (though not all) of what was called “The Left” dropped its aim to improve the material well-being of the working class by shifting control of the nation’s productive capacities more towards the working class than the bourgeoisie. Those Leftists who abandoned this imperative saw the political action more in tearing down the nation’s cultural edifice, which it saw as brainwashing the working class thus preventing revolution.
It is in this context that the institutional and rhetorical enabling structures surrounding the “Cultural Studies” movement developed.
Anybody who thinks the “Culture Wars” are over just because John Howard has gone is either - once again - being disingenuous, is not very aware/perceptive, or does not understand what the Culture Wars are about.
Im sorry: what precisely does Rudd have in common with Howard?
Aside from “committing to budget surpluses” rhetoric, I’d call it a media myth. I think people are getting two separate things confused : 1. Rudd’s tactics (not fighting Howard on areas where he was strongest) and 2. actual similarities.
1. Uberdork
2. The glasses and bland suit uniform of the early 21st century technocrat.
3. Professional liar
4. Control freak
Rudd is a conservative neoliberal. Hullo?
Lefties,
I have already listed the numerous policy similarities. If you still can’t identifying them, then I’m afraid I cannot help you.
“And how does policy convergence bear any relation to any possible shift of the political centre? Rudd’s continuation of many Coalition policies goes to show that Australians really just vote between competing administrative teams/programs attending the same legacy.”
If you can’t see how Rudd’s me-tooism helped Labor, then its just as well that Labor didn’t take your advice on board.
Leon Bertrand, you aren’t a shabby shabby patch on either of your Russells.
Go away.
If they were over, you’d have a lot less to write about on the intertubes. I’m not sure tales of your Friday night Oxford St escapades are all that compelling to many readers.
The limits of google!
“Social democracy” was originally the term Marxist parties adopted in the 19th century. After Bernstein (and others) came along in the 1890s, the German Social Democrats were associated with “revisionism” - ie a parliamentary rather than a revolutionary road to socialism. These parties split in the wake of WW1 into reformist and communist parties - the latter swiftly taken over or inspired by the Comintern. “Social democracy” was then a term used to describe Swedish style welfarism which never placed many eggs in the nationalisation basket. It passed into English-language politics via Labour righties such as Tony Crosland in the 50s. But, at that stage, the Brits were still talking in terms of a transition to socialism but socialism was redefined as a “mixed economy”, etc.
It’s a very interesting story well worth studying - outside google.
Personally I’d like to see a libertarian socialist society. But the climate for getting there isn’t particularly friendly to put it mildly!
Classic Green, I’d say, but whatever. People like Hamilton and Manne who work at arriving at ideas for the betterment of society will always be derided by the likes of Albrechtsen who’s only gift is the ability to urge the kids to pick on the red head.
Well, what constructive suggestions has Albrechtsen ever made for the betterment of society? As opposed to lashing out at stuff she doesn’t like and ad hominem and specious bullshit…
Incidentally, I’m waiting for some “fresh thinking” and “new ideas” from our friend Greenfield. Something not about teaching Shakespeare in high school.
Which strand appeals, Kim? Anarchy or socialism.
wbb, I see libertarian socialism and left anarchism as being very close.
Are there online any Australian references I could read, Kim? Don’t bother with a link - just a name or group to search on.
Sorry, wbb, none that I know well. Sort of thing I was more involved in when I was living in the States. These days, I just read my Emma Goldman!
This one looks like it might have some interesting links:
[link]
Znet is always a good resource for libertarian socialist stuff.
wbb: read Chomsky.
You’re still making the fatal mistake of assuming 51 per cent or more of the electorate actually takes the time to compare, analyse and vote by policy. At best, people’s attention to the stuff is passive and intermittent: they don’t look at Rudd or Howard on telly doing the stage-managed democracy and see…aboriginal intervention, RAMSI, budget surplus, Four Pillars policy. They see them as human beings and make value judgements which accrue over time into opinions that get vigorously maintained in public. ‘Middle-aged metro upstart with a mandate to Freshen that Thinking’; ‘incumbent elderstatesman we love to hate/hate to love’.
>
I daresay not even the party matters to the swinging vote anymore, so long as its leader has ‘It’.
Jage @ #23:
“…I hoped my tone would convey, I am being very sincere here, and it is bang on the actual topic of Paul’s thread…”
Quite - pardon the flippancy, my dear fellow. Then this:
“You forget I myself used to identify as a socialist and marxist. I changed disgusted with the way, materialism was dropped for culture. On a self-publicised “Left of Centreâ€? blog in the wash up of a change of government where notions of left, right, liberal, conservative were constitutive of the “Culture Warsâ€? I think you might allow even ME a response to this question.”
Quite so. As for this: ‘I have always been stunned at this “Mini Jack Sâ€? label…” Well it’s partly tease, partly of your own lumbering making, I’m afraid I’ll have to hazard. You tend to wade in with your anti-Culty Studs Kliche-47 set to unthinking automatic, my good sir.
I’ve worked with, among, alongside - OK, let’s admit…for, in a menial admin sense - the kind of academic/Culture ‘Teh Lefties’ you inexplicably seem to have digited as the root of all contemporary liberal/Enlightenment decay. Jage, you’ve got a seriously whiffy picture of what goes on in the halls of academe these days. The noble-if-flawed (and ever-underfunded) struggle for beauty, truth and enlightenment goes on much as it has done for the last X-ty thousand moons, chum; you’ve just been duped by the self-serving agit-proppers of Philistine (you’re not seriously proposing we hand fucking Murdoch and his tacky grub street dribble-goons any aesthetic or brainiac authority in this matter, are you? Jages, are you fucking barkers?).
Sorry, but there it is, sausage. You’ve been had. Dudded. Filleted by smooth turds possessed of naught but great big MSM megaphones and intellectual/aesthetic willies with the heft and durability of half-sucked tic-tacs. Yes, there are the occasional OTT charlatans and hustlers who vaguely flirt with and even match these hoary Kulcha War templates du jour. But - you and me excepted, naturally - all humans are capable of spanking inanity at least once or twice in a career of Letters. And by and large the silly ‘Teh Kulty Studs Evil’ straw cut-outs you flap madly about in an effort to launch your (wholly-redundant, moot, half-cocked) defences of Canonistic Classicism - a bit like the splenetic try-hards in those old heavier-than-air flying machine prototype newsreels (that always crash, JG, usually lamely - you see?) - just bear no relation to empirical reality. By and large the people your instinct is to attack are exactly the sort of people you ought, if you take your cultural and aesthetic sense of history seriously - and I don’t doubt you do, deservedly so - you ought to be championing.
These guys, LP, ‘Teh Left’, these Kulty-Fulty-Arty-Farties, these chatterers…these aren’t the enemy of excellence, Jage, of serious intellectual aspiration, of enquiry and rigour and discipline and application and soaring Enlightenment ambition. Come on, you know that. You must know that. Come on, knock it off. Don’t be a dreary bloody cliche yourself, my good man. It just doesn’t quite…fit. Does it. It feels like a blue-tacked-on excuse for an easy argument. Grandstanding for the goony-gumps in the top tier, Jage.
Pfffft.
Myra…oh, what a delicious, delicious bitch that GV is…I’ve been sneaking peaks on Youtube at clips from the film. Why was this not a celluloid triumph?! Warmly yours, for the tip, JG. Loving it.
Now. As Kim puts it: ‘[We’re all] incidentally…waiting for some “fresh thinkingâ€? and “new ideasâ€? from our friend Greenfield. Something not about teaching Shakespeare in high school…”
So come on, you old truffle, it’s fun out here frolicking nuddy in the bracing mud of No Man’s Land. Let us shed the plebian cloth uniforms of this Kulcha (non)War, comrade! Let us have some good old Xmas truce hijinks between the rigid bloodied lines of yesteryear. 4 shorely t’is where all the funky cats of Big History and Kulcha hang, and always have, non?
In a world’s first, the CSIRO has developed a new super-duper telescope, mounted on a one-person spacecraft positioned just outside the Earth’s atmosphere. And, just like that famous telescope-wielding 19th century British seafarer, the astronaut is also called Nelson – Nellie for short.
Mission Control: Er…Nellie…this is Mission Control in Woop Woop Junction…are you reading me?
Nellie: Yes, Mission Control…reading you loud and clear…by the way Mission Control, why do we say ‘reading’, when we are ‘listening’ instead…
MC: Don’t worry about it, Nell…have you focused the telescope on that solar system we think might contain some life forms?
Nellie: Yes, Mission Control…I’m just training the ‘scope on it now…yes, it looks like it contains two planets – with an asteroid belt in between.
MC: Excellent, Nell…do any of the planets look like they contain life forms?
Nellie: I’m looking at the smaller outer planet now, Mission Control…and it is so far from its sun, its almost dark during its daytime…no life to be seen…life may have existed on it at one stage but definitely not any longer…
MC: Does it have any distinguishing features, Nell…something that will help us give it a name?
Nellie: The only significant thing I notice, Mission Control, is two vast mountain ranges, coming together in the shape of two big bushy eyebrows…
MC: Thanks, Nell…we’ll have to give that one a bit more thought…what about the other planet, Nell?
Nellie: Well…I’m just having a look now at the bigger one nearer the sun and…wait a minute…there definitely is human-like life there…in fact, I’ve just got the computer to count the number of beings on the ground, and there are exactly 1000 of them…
MC: And what precisely are they doing, Nell?
Nellie: Its hard to say, Mission Control, as all I can do with the telescope is read their lips…it seems each is asking a question to no-one in particular, and then proceeding to answer their own question! Really freaky, Mission Control!
MC: Anything else, Nell?
Nellie: Yes, there seems to be lots of what look like life-size cardboard cut-outs of some bloke with glasses…looks like we have discovered the first cult outside of our solar system, Mission Control!
MC: Far out, Nell! And what about that asteroid belt between the two planets?
Nellie: Yes, I’m training the telescope on a few of the rocks now, Mission Control…and by jeepers, this is very strange indeed…
MC: What is it, Nell?
Nellie: Some of the rocks have got what look like signs stuck to them, Mission Control…
MC: What do they say, Nell?
Nellie: Well, one says, ‘Costello for PM’…and another, ‘Robert Manne is nothing but a girly-boy’…Oh, and another says, ‘its cool to be conservative’…and there’s one that says, ‘the sisterhood sucks’…and ‘AWA’s are AOK’…
MC: Truly bizarre, Nell! It looks like the asteroid belt got too close to the bigger inner planet, and disintegrated. What’ll we call it, Nell…what about Planet Janet?
Nell: Very appropriate, Mission Control…
MC: Thanks, Nell…over and out for now…
Jack Robertson wants to get nekkid with Jage Malfoy???
I’m nekkid on the intertubes!
Just sayin…
H&R @ 46:
Ahem! We owners of 1994 Mitsu-bashis are mortally offended!
*flounces*
Leon
we’ve listed so many policy differences between Howard and Rudd, that if you can’t see the point there’s not much more we can do. Howard, most trenchantly, wouldn’t have apologised, wouldn’t have endorsed Kyoto, wouldn’t have rolled workchoices, wouldn’t have closed Nauru.
Rudd me-too’d on some things, but not on these important, and identifiably centre left, issues. It is wilful self-delusion to refuse to recognise this, but i suppose this curious behavious is necessary to protect your delicate rightwing psyche.
Howard also made sure he did not startle the horses in ‘96, then turned out to be a highly partisan and ideological leader. Many of his most partisan initiatives were introduced dishonestly, without an electoral mandate, workchoices the most salient.
Without picking on anybody in particular, I think it’s naive to think that the question of what direction Australian society will move in the lifetime of the current Labor government, and how far, can be divined from the presentational tactics adopted by Rudd and Federal Labor prior to and during the election campaign, and in the first few months of office. How many of those of us who remember the Hawke/Keating era were able to successfully predict, in June 1983, most of the policy shifts and wider societal changes which occurred in the subsequent 13 years? It’s worth remembering that some of the most significant progressive initiatives under Hawke in particular weren’t what many people on either the established Left or the established Right were thinking about in 1983 (Neil Blewett’s successful HIV-AIDS strategy and Graham Richardson’s environmental policy initiatives are two obvious examples). I think the Left can likewise expect a mixture of disappointments and pleasant surprises under the current mob, although what the balance of the mix will be will be partly shaped by our own efforts.
Secondly, you don’t just change the country by changing the Prime Minister. Important sociocultural changes can occur independently of, and even in the teeth of, the prevailing winds of official politics and government. Despite the fears of some and the hopes of others, Howard manifestly failed to restore the 50s white picket fence family as the norm. Female workforce participation rates and the ratio of women to men in the workforce rose steadily through Howard’s tenure (and more consistently than under Keating), and the traditional male breadwinner family continued to decline in importance. Likewise, public sentiment on gender issues (as measured by Australian Election Studies) continued to shift towards the pro-feminist end through the life of the Howard government.
Thirdly, a word about Labor’s tactical me-tooism on a number of issues. This does not necessarily reflect the view that Howard’s view had majority support on all such issues. It could reflect the view that supporters of Howard’s view, whether they were a numerical majority or minority, were more likely to change their vote on the issue than were opponents of Howard’s view (read Graham Richardson’s discussion, in his autobiography, of the impact of the gun control issue in the 1988 NSW State election for an example of this kind of tactical thinking). It could reflect the calculation that supporters of Howard’s view, even if a small minority of the Australian population, were decisively concentrated in “must-win” seats and therefore had to be placated (Rudd’s position on Tasmanian forests was a classic example of this calculation). It could reflect the calculation that Labor was winning handsomely on a few key fronts such as WorkChoices and climate change, and that there was nothing to be gained by broadening the front to other issues and therefore unduly complicating a simple winning strategy (a dictum of the late Fred Daly).
Finally, as I stated in my original post, the AES for the 2007 election will be coming out soon and we can find out what the serious social scientists have found about whether Australia is moving left, right or both directions at once.
Also, as I was sitting