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Tag Archive for 'anniversary'
Today marks the second anniversary of the election of the Rudd government.
No doubt thousands of words will be written to commemorate it.
This is your opportunity to add even more!
I’ve commented before on the tendency to anticipate the anniversary of events, and everyone in the Oz media has been doing just that ahead of the milestone of two years since the election of the Rudd government, which falls on Tuesday.
Of particular interest is a long piece by Shaun Carney in The Age. Carney himself refers to skepticism that Rudd is “a right wing free trader leading a left wing party”. I think that’s wrong. I’m increasingly convinced that Kevin Rudd should be taken at his word on his perspective on economics. The fact that his famous article on neo-liberalism was also incredibly politically useful for him doesn’t prove insincerity.
Carney makes an interesting argument that Rudd’s governing style is one forged in the history of Queensland political culture. It would be possible to complicate and trouble this in various ways (including observing a different approach to governance in our state bureaucracy), but I think the core of his thesis is right:
Several of Rudd’s colleagues who believe they understand him politically point to the peculiar nature of Queensland’s politics as a policy guide. Queenslanders, both the politicians and the voters, often view themselves as a breed apart. And their conception of government, historically a battle between two types of state paternalism – Labor and National – does not necessarily match the ideas of elites in the Canberra-Sydney-Melbourne triangle.
I think I’ve observed before that commemorations of anniversaries now appear to be anticipated days, or even weeks or months before the day in question falls. Whether or not this is a function of the desire to get in early and hoover up some traffic on news websites, or whether it’s a reflection of a more profound shift in the fluidity of how we note and memorialise the passing of time – anyone’s speculation. But speaking of speculation, Jeremy Gaunt at Reuters observes:
The anniversary of Lehman Brothers’ collapse on September 15 will doubtlessly bring with it vast numbers of stories about what it all meant. It was, after all, the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, a marker for the near collapse of the financial system and the trigger for government to pump trillions of dollars into economies to stave off another Great Depression.
So it might be an apposite moment to pause and reflect on how much has (and has not) changed. All the screeds about the demise of neo-liberalism, as I’ve observed on quite a number of occasions, seem to ignore the fact that the supposedly almighty markets have always relied on the government as saviour of last resort, and there’s nothing different qualitatively in the big bailout of 2008/9. Short term rhetoric and ideological point scoring aside, it’s just a fact that a capitalist system tightly interweaves the state and private actors.
It may well be, however, that there was a missed opportunity to reorient the current state of affairs globally in a more transformational fashion. But that is an opportunity the left lost, precisely because of a lack of confidence and an acceptance – at heart – of the whole “there is no alternative” mantra of neo-liberalism. Systemic alternatives, rather than Keynesian tinkering, simply weren’t on offer, and there were no social movements to mobilise for them anyway in most OECD countries.
That’s starkly illustrated in a rather nifty piece by Andy Beckett in The Guardian.
Another risible article from David Burchell marks the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. In attacking “the Woodstock moment”, he criticises “un-remembering” (what a horrible coinage), the putative sin of the Boomers (whoever they may be), and in the process indicts himself with a ludicrous conflation of all sorts of things into a single generationalist narrative, which has precious little to do with history or cultural memory, and everything to do with right wing prejudices.
Burchell claims that Woodstock “was little more than three wearisome, mud-soaked days of musical chaos”, citing the Wall Street Journal’s music critic, surely itself an oxymoronic title. Apparently blind to the symbolic dimension of popular culture, Burchell blithely ignores the fact that the entire discourse of the culture wars is founded on the symbolic distribution of cultural value. An anthropologist would have no trouble recognising it for what it is – myth-making.
Update: Tim Dunlop.
From today’s Crikey:
There has been a certain feeling in the air of deja vu over the past fortnight in Queensland. The jailing of a former Minister, allegations that government was far too close to business, a government sinking rapidly in the polls while making “tough decisions” and, the piece de resistance, the exposure of systemic misconduct in the elite Armed Robbery Squad of the Queensland Police.
The timing of this sequence of supposedly unlikely events was interesting. Much is being made of the 20th anniversary of the release of the Fitzgerald Report. The date falls this Thursday, and Tony Fitzgerald QC himself will be commemorating the occasion with a public lecture at Griffith University.
So is something again rotten in the state of Queensland?
Lurid stories of convicted criminals wining, dining and bonking on dodgy day release jaunts supposedly to gather intelligence for the coppers dominated local press coverage. This a week after revelations of the jailed Gordon Nuttall’s bizarre plans to make himself premier — shades of Russ Hinze perhaps.
The reality, though, is more prosaic.
Continue reading ‘Something rotten in the state of Queensland?’
From today’s Crikey — Jeff Sparrow of Overland writes:
It’s quite astonishing that the public figure who yesterday pointed out that the deadline for Kevin Rudd’s response to ideas from his 2020 summit had quietly come and gone was Peter Costello.
Naturally, Costello has his own agenda. But where were the summiteers themselves? Do none of them care that their ideas have come to nought?
Recall, if you will, the atmosphere a year ago.
In April 2008, the best and brightest burned with summit fever. The invitees boasted in their newspaper columns and radio shows about the size of their ideas. Those who hadn’t made the cut trawled desperately through Wonka Bars for a Golden Ticket. There were debates about whether sufficient women were going and whether the date, on a religious holiday, excluded Jews. Kevan Gosper worried that sportsmen didn’t have a big enough say, Tim Fischer drummed up support in the bush, and The Age ran a competition through which John and Jane Average could win the right to mingle with their betters.
Every country town celebrated its local representatives; every university pumped out press releases boasting about the academics who’d be on board. There was even a youth summit for the kiddies.
Was holding a policy at an invite-only event rather than, say, an election just a teensy bit, well, undemocratic? Hush your mouth, you nay-saying cynic! Wasn’t it a little unlikely — in fact, downright impossible — that this galaxy of celebrities would arrive at consensus on a zillion contentious issues in a single weekend? But… but … but … Cate Blanchett! With a baby!
Back then, the left-liberal consensus was almost total. Continue reading ‘Guest post by Jeff Sparrow: The 2020 Summit anniversary’
When Mick Dodson was announced as Australian of the Year, I made this observation:
[It] might also be a good idea to take some sort of stock on how the whole “Bridging the Gap” thing is going – almost a year after the Apology. Debate on Indigenous issues appears to have gone into cold storage recently. Although it’s a good thing if Indigenous people are no longer being used as partisan footballs, conversely if we’ve all decided to sit on our bums in a permanent warm glow after the Apology, that’s not a good thing at all.
While it’s probably understandable that the combination of bushfires and the economic crisis and stimulus package kerfuffle have pushed Indigenous matters out of the media spotlight this week, that’s nevertheless deeply disappointing. Props, though, to organisations like SBS which have taken the trouble to highlight the anniversary of the Apology and to interview a range of Indigenous people each night on the news. But, bushfires, Senate shenanigans and the media cycle aside, I think the comments I was making back in January do suggest that “Closing the Gap” has largely fallen off the political agenda, at least in terms of what’s highlighted publicly. So I’m pleased to see Professor Jon Altman reporting in Crikey today on how much progress is or isn’t being made. Go read!
Well, having opened a thread that perhaps proves that Ute Man is still out there but not actually supporting Emo Man, it behoves me, I guess, to have a bit of a say about the tenure of the Rudd government to date. To some degree all these sorts of anniversaries are somewhat artificial, as you can easily see in the United States with the fetish of the “first hundred days”. Governments will eventually be judged by the electorate in due season, as Kevin Rudd would say, and as almost all politicians intone (particularly those who are dissatisfied with their contemporary popularity), in the end they will be judged by history – whose verdict is perhaps as mythical as the Judgement of Paris, but never mind that. However, as I was suggesting, if politics and public discussion is cruelled by the vagaries and obsessions of an ever shorter media cycle, a year really is a long time in government, and it is worth taking stock.
It can also be interesting to compare first term governments at this stage of the electoral cycle, and here the obvious contrast – despite all the media beatups – is the absence of major scandal and ministerial resignations compared to both the Hawke and Howard governments. That doesn’t, of course, imply that all the Labor ministers are fabulous, but it is worth observing.
One of the things that’s interested me in the discussion that had already began quite a while before we reached the actual milestone is that in both comments on this blog and in conversations with some friends I’ve seen the sentiment expressed that simply avoiding hearing a daily litany of horrors from the Howard crew is Rudd’s greatest achievement. It might, and no doubt will, be objected that – “lefties would say that, wouldn’t they?” But I think there are a couple of points here. First, there is no doubt that a government with a more humanitarian tinge and an appreciation of propriety and ethics is to be welcomed, and that sentiment – along with the promise keeping – will be a contributor to Labor’s continuing lead in the polls. Secondly, I think The Howard Years has been interestingly timed to stimulate some comparison and to reinforce the whole sense of relief that we don’t have that turgid mob to kick around any more.
But, again, one thing that wore out the Coalition’s welcome with the electorate was the constant “rabbits out of the hat” and the whole bag of divisive tricks, along with the internal ructions and the cockiness of ministers. I agree that the Liberals are still playing at the same game in many ways. John Howard was elected in 1996 as a safe pair of hands and the Libs were “the party of order”, if you like. By the end of their fourth term, they looked like the risky and unsafe proposition and Kevin Rudd’s calm demeanour undoubtedly contributed much to Labor’s victory. WorkChoices was also probably the biggest single mistake the Coalition made, and the related apprehension that worse would follow and more leadership instability also condemned the Howard government to defeat.
But what of policy, and that shibboleth beloved of the punditariat, “the narrative”? Continue reading ‘Rudd one year on’
I’m sticking to my no politics on the weekend rule, and have a busy day tomorrow, so I’m going to save up my thoughts on the first anniversary of the defeat of the Howard government and the election of the Rudd Labor government for later on. But there’s no doubt that there will be a fair bit of discussion about it, so please feel free to use this thread for posting links, and making any observations you may have. I think it is a useful milestone to place the government’s performance in some sort of perspective that’s deeper and less transient than the everyday trivialities of most political commentary.
Update: Here’s my take, focusing more on politics than policy. Graham Young looks at the deficit issue. An Onymous Lefty emphasises the Not Howard issue. At Crikey, Bernard Keane wishes everyone a Happy Kruddiversary and readers weigh in, and Scott Bridges writes in New Matilda.
Update: Andrew Bartlett notes the anniversary and the fact that it happily coincides with the long over due removal of statutory discrimination against same sex couples.
45 years old today. Tigtog has a link rich and interesting post commemorating the anniversary at Hoyden.
An American tragedy made into a political commodity: top political commentator Keith Olbermann is distinctly unimpressed at the cynicism of the invocation of 9/11 at the Republican National Convention.
9/11 (TM) has made possible the greatest sleight-of-hand in our nation’s history.
The political party in office at the time of the attacks, at the local, state and national levels, the party which uniformly ignored the warnings and the presidential administration already through twenty percent of its first term and no longer wet behind the ears, have not only thus far escaped any blame for the malfeasance and criminal neglect that allowed the attacks to occur, but that presidency and that party, have managed to make it seem as if the other political party would be solely and irredeemably responsible for any similar catastrophe in the future.
The misrepresentations and manipulations of the terror of seven years ago are laid out clearly in Olberman’s analysis, starting with his contempt for the choice of Giuliani, who has no other bandwagon to ride other than 9/11, as a keynote speaker at the convention.
his childish, squealing, braying, Tourette’s-like repetition of 9/11 (TM), was greeted not as conclusive evidence that he is consumed by massive guilt – hard-earned guilt, in fact but rather as some kind of political tour-de-force, an endorsement of your Vice Presidential nominee, a rookie governor , a facile and slick con artist.
The blind endorsing the bland, to a chorus of 9/11 (TM), 9/11 (TM), 9/11 (TM.)
Your ringing mindless cheer of “We’ve Kept You Safe Since Then.” While nobody asks “doesn’t then count?”
All of this, sadistically disrespecting the dead of New York, and Washington, and Shanksville. Endorsed, Sen. McCain. Exploited, Sen. McCain. Trademarked, Sen. McCain by you.
Continue reading ‘Republicans have hijacked 9/11 remembrance and re-branded it as 9/11TM‘
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