Tag Archive for 'Australian Democrats'

The World’s Top Emitter

Published
by
Kim
4 months, 2 weeks ago
in Activism, Climate change, Developing world, Economics, Energy, Environment, Foreign Elections, Foreign policy, International, Markets and USA
. Closed

It sounds like some dumb reality tv show, doesn’t it? But we all know who didn’t get voted out of the house.

As almost everyone in the world knows, it’s election year in America.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (don’t ask, you already know the answer!) might be in trouble. Iraq might be - kinda, sorta - an election issue. But if - like me - you’re following the American Election via either the blogosphere or (oh noes!) the MSM, you’d notice a huge disconnect between how big an issue climate change is here, and how totally miniscule it is in the U S of A.

I hope Al Gore might have something to say at the Democratic Convention.

But that might not occur. And even if it does, and that and all the Arnie stuff aside, it’s going to be pretty much a side issue. Lord only knows what we can do, but those of us who, like me, are Democrats Overseas, might consider a bit of lobbying. But we might think as well about remembering that climate change is a global issue, and trying to get the Australian government to use whatever leverage it has to get it treated as such. Continue reading ‘The World’s Top Emitter’

No Mayo with that, please, it doesn’t go with my latte

Published
by
Mark
4 months, 3 weeks ago
in Adelaide, Elections, Media, Polls and Sociology
. 42 Comments

As Lord Downer of Cyprus Alexander Downer prepares to dump on the electors of Mayo less than eight months after they re-elected him, reasonable observers might wonder who exactly is treating the voters with contempt:

“I think they’re treating the people of Mayo with contempt if they’re not prepared to run a candidate when they’re the Government of Australia.”

Except on Planet Janet, there’s probably little interest around about Dolly’s musings, presumably concocted over a cigar or two while dreaming about his Hummer. But there is still some interest around about whether Labor should run a candidate in the Mayo by-election that will result from Downer’s resignation from Parliament.

Tim Watts at Tree of Knowledge thinks not, noting Antony Green’s summary of all the times the Libs eschewed the chance to run in by-elections they couldn’t win while in Government. The Poll Bludger suggests the ALP should:

No doubt their decision will be soundly based on research, but if I were them I’d go for it: the electorate that almost put John Schumann in parliament seems an unlikely candidate for an emissions trading scheme backlash, and a relatively good result would help shake the Gippsland monkey off the government’s back.

The media cycle being what it is, I suspect Gippsland’s now ancient history. I’m not sure if The Poll Bludger’s ever been to the Adelaide Hills, but it’s certainly not fertile territory for Labor. Antony Green’s already got a page up on the by-election contest, and he observes: Continue reading ‘No Mayo with that, please, it doesn’t go with my latte’

Open Senate?

Published
by
Mark
5 months ago
in Activism, Culture, Government, Media and Policy
. 26 Comments

The new Senate won’t formally sit until 26 August, but scrutiny of the Greens Senators, Family First’s Stephen Fielding and South Australian Independent Nick Xenophon has already been ramped up, since they all now collectively hold the balance of power. Props to my CPD colleague Ben Eltham for interviewing Xenophon and thus introducing him and some of his policy positions to those of us who aren’t familiar with South Australian politics.

While the Greens’ policy positions are well known, or if they’re not, they’re reasonably accessible, and thus transparent for those who take the time to look, Xenophon’s disclaimer of any left/right ideological commitment and indeed the relatively narrow range of issues on which Fielding has taken a prominent stand raises an important question. Unfortunately, we’ve lost our most prominent blogging Senator - from the Senate, that is, not from blogging. One of the Democrats’ more laudable stances was accountability to their membership (although aspects of that commitment - particularly the low threshold for a leadership challenge - were also probably a large contributor to their downfall), and Andrew Bartlett carried this level of accountability to a broader public through blogging the work of the Senate, which also allowed for public input into his legislative and policy decisions.

Continue reading ‘Open Senate?’

Beyond the red state-blue state dichotomy

Published
by
Mark
5 months ago
in Activism, Books, Writers & Writing, Culture, Economics, Foreign Elections, Foreign policy, History, Politics, Polls, Religion, Sociology, The Web, USA and War
. 13 Comments

I’ve been reading Jerry F. Hough’s Changing Party Coalitions: The Mystery of the Red State-Blue State Alignment on and off over the weekend, after it arrived from Amazon on Friday. I’d been wanting to have a read for a while - after I saw this review. Part of what Hough - a long time Sovietologist and comparative politics scholar - is trying to do is to expose some of the myths that we tend to create about past political patterns and partisan alignments - based on our present understanding of voter motivation and party image. He makes the point - not in itself an unusual one but rarely developed to its full analytical potential - that the Democrats and Republicans have effectively swapped ideological sides several times, though his analysis of the Jacksonian-Jeffersonian mythos of the Democratic Party suggests that the Donkeys were never actually to the left of the GOP before FDR. It’s also highly relevant to note that Adlai Stevenson was the first “New Democrat” - adopting a “suburban strategy” that effectively turned its back on the New Deal’s economic agenda, and that JFK, although his ideas on foreign policy were quite distinct from Adlai’s, shared his economic conservatism and was effectively a do-nothing President in the domestic policy field. The fact that “left” and “right” or “liberal” and conservative” have shifted ground from the New Deal party system to a cultural focus, and that McGovernite cultural liberalism was a big part of that shift, obscures for instance the truth that Richard Nixon was arguably a moderate liberal domestically, while McGovern’s economics had more in common with Goldwater than Johnson.

Hough’s also fascinating on the contingency of racial and national identity, and although some of his own commitments are shaped by a relatively conservative developmentalist political science ideology of modernisation, his injection of a long historical perspective and a sociological toolkit into political analysis of the American scene is a very valuable contribution. Changing Party Coalitions was written in 2005, but his discussion of the dynamics of the recent “Red State-Blue State Alignment” is quite prescient - and very useful for thinking about what Barack Obama’s biggest political challenge might be, and why Hillary Clinton was able to do well as a very unlikely standard bearer of the white working class.

Continue reading ‘Beyond the red state-blue state dichotomy’

I left my heart in San Francisco…

Published
by
Kim
5 months, 1 week ago
in Australiana, Brisbane, Culture, Feminism, Foreign Elections, History, International, Life, Melbourne, Politics, Sociology, USA, Urbanism and Women
. 73 Comments

Stock image courtesy of the Italian Cultural Institute.

I have to defend the town I lived in from 1996 to 2002 from the all too flippant calumny in this comment. (And incidentally Nancy Pelosi, one of whose Congressional campaigns I worked on, as well as heaps of local ones for both the Democrats and the Greens… - she’s so right in this comment about the Clinton campaign.) As I’ve said about a thousand times before, pro-Americanism or anti-Americanism is the dumb. It’s far too complex a country to condemn or praise in toto, and - incidentally - one I’m proud to be a citizen of. But I will say, as someone largely brought up in Brisneyland, that San Francisco is one part of the world where there’s enough cultural similarities that we can feel, not at home, but able to negotiate our way into feeling like this is Heimat, as it were. Or, at least, I felt that way. Continue reading ‘I left my heart in San Francisco…’

Laboring the point? … or liberal socialism and/or social liberalism

Published
by
Mark
5 months, 2 weeks ago
in Culture, Feminism, History, Howardia, Lesbian and Gay, Philosophy, Policy, Politics, Religion, Sexuality, Sociology and Women
. 30 Comments

I was intrigued yesterday to see Assistant Treasurer Chris Bowen writing one of the more substantive pieces in the Sydney Morning Herald’s regular feast of op/eds written by pollies. Bowen argues that social liberals within the Liberal Party are as marginalised now as they were under John Howard, and concludes:

But the move to the right by the Liberal Party means that traditional small l liberals are looking for a home. As a social liberal in the Labor Party, I can tell you that it is a very welcoming home.

I’m not so sure that’s absolutely accurate, but more of that later. First, I wanted to explore why Bowen thought this was an apposite point to make at this time. He refers to the amalgamation talk with the Nationals, and certainly Barnaby Joyce’s recent musings might give some small l liberals something to ponder. But I suspect what’s prompted Bowen’s article is actually some shenanigans going on in the Senate, which aren’t unrelated to the Liberal leadership.

Continue reading ‘Laboring the point? … or liberal socialism and/or social liberalism’

Power couple politics NSW style and the alleged disciplinary double standard

Published
by
tigtog
5 months, 3 weeks ago
in Levity, Media, NSW Government, Politics and Women
. 109 Comments

Well, hasn’t it been a busy week or so for NSW Minister John Della Bosca and his wife, Federal backbencher MP Belinda Neal?

Of course, for the last few days we’ve only been hearing about her, despite Della Bosca’s documented history of multiple traffic offences leading to a revoked driving license and allegations that he was part of the alleged drunken and abusive behaviour in a Central Coast nightclub last weekend.

Last month Della Bosca’s licence was revoked for six months following a series of speeding offences, after which he reportedly swore at a newspaper photographer for taking pictures of him riding a bicycle.

Yesterday, he refused to speak to irate teachers who invaded his office to vent their fury at the Government’s decision to change the rules under which school principals hire staff. [source]

Perhaps the newspapers are a bit bored with Della Bosca’s temper, plus although people like to lampoon him he’s simply not that easy a target for anything more (such as collecting a political scalp for the editor’s wall), due to the degree of power he wields in the NSW Labor party. But his wife doesn’t have the same powerbase behind her, and besides - a woman with a filthy temper, there’s a news story with legs - cue hordes of gleefully chortling editors. Neal’s excesses have made the international newspapers now, which gives us a very pithy summary of the key points that are being latched onto for the news cycle: Continue reading ‘Power couple politics NSW style and the alleged disciplinary double standard’

Holding the tribes together in the climate change age

Published
by
Mark
5 months, 3 weeks ago
in Adelaide, Brisbane, Climate change, Economics, Elections, Energy, Environment, Melbourne, Perth, Politics, Sociology and Sydney
. 22 Comments

Some of the tensions in Rudd’s governance and indeed in his Cabinet over climate change issues are discussed by Brian in this post. Brian’s thoughts could usefully be read together with Shaun Carney’s column in yesterday’s Age [via Gary Sauer-Thompson at Public Opinion]:

The central tension for contemporary Labor is the need to weave together its disparate supporting tribes and Rudd’s car plan, which co-opts concern about climate change to underpin the ALP’s more traditional working class base, tells us how he wants to do it. When Labor was last in power, under Paul Keating, it managed to hold on to most of its white-collar support base but lost office when parts of its blue-collar base, pummelled by the effects of economic deregulation, concluded it had lost touch. Since then, the white-collar left has coalesced more solidly around the Greens - an effect that has been turbo-charged by the death of the more moderate Democrats. This has two consequences, both of which make it harder for Labor to hold on to power.

Continue reading ‘Holding the tribes together in the climate change age’

Australia’s War is over II

Published
by
Mark
5 months, 3 weeks ago
in Ethics, Foreign policy, Howardia, International, Iraq, Law, Media and Middle East
. 55 Comments

There’s been some comment here on a previous thread about why Australia’s withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq has stimulated so little debate - either in the media or in the blogosphere. My comment on why that might be so is here, and I’d add that the rather narrow concept of the political in Australian public discourse tends to mean that issues which are “politically neutralised” are quickly forgotten. That’s most unfortunate - because going to war on the basis of specious legal justifications and distortions and lies about intelligence is hardly a trivial matter. We owe it to ourselves as a nation to ensure this never occurs again, and the risk of it occurring again is surely heightened by a failure to remember.

I want to highlight in this post two exceptions to the rule of silence. First, in the blogosphere, Gandhi has written a comprehensive post analysing the week’s news and developments, highlighting the attempts of some in legal and activist circles to bring John Howard’s actions before the notice of the International Criminal Court, a move supported by Democrats leader Lyn Allison. Similar action in the United Kingdom was the subject of much publicity and debate, but there’s been little reporting of the substance of the brief prepared or its justification in this country. It’s important to remember that John Howard - I suspect on legal advice - ruled out “regime change”, human rights abuses or democratic goals as sufficient conditions for the Iraq War in a speech to the National Press Club on 14 March 2003. According to Howard at the time, only Saddam’s purported possession of weapons of mass destruction constituted an appropriate ground for the decision to go to war. All his later bloviating, by his own standards, was just political piffle.

It may well be that Howard had advice that the only legal justification for war was the resolutions of the UN Security Council regarding weapons inspections. That was certainly the advice given to the British government, as we know after a series of inquiries in the UK. I’m no lawyer, but it might well be that this figleaf provides sufficient legal cover for Howard to escape any culpability for his actions. It may also be that the subsequent UN recognition of the occupation of Iraq would provide some sort of retrospective immunity. Nevertheless, given the enormous importance of clarifying the legal basis or otherwise for wars of pre-emption, it seems to me eminently desirable that such an argument - an argument based on international law - be tested in an international tribunal.

That takes us to the issue of intelligence, because as we now know, Saddam Hussein had ended his WMD program in the 1990s. Continue reading ‘Australia’s War is over II’

The politics of the Bill Henson controversy

Published
by
Kim
6 months, 1 week ago
in Art, Australiana, Brisbane, Culture, Media, Photography, Queensland and Sociology
. 90 Comments

Bill Henson image from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

A vigorous discussion of various aspects of the controversy about Bill Henson’s photography (and particularly about the images of naked adolescents now at the centre of a media and legal storm) continues on this thread. I think it might be useful if we tried to separate out some of the issues - I think that discussion shows that a lot of us are agreed that an incredible number of different topics are collapsed together in the framing of the Henson “debate” in the media. So on this thread, I’d like to discuss the politics of the Henson controversy. Please restrict responses to that specific aspect - others can be discussed here on the continuation of the previous thread.

It’s pretty clear to me that the only political winners from the brouhaha over Henson’s photographs are the culture warriors themselves. Whether or not Miranda Devine knew what she was setting off is perhaps a moot question, but it seems obvious that the culture warriors are rejoicing in being able to find an issue that positions what they normally bang on about as much more central to public debate than their usual fare. I doubt their own triumphalism is warranted - they still face the problem that ranting and raving about Islamism and the enemy within and global warming denialism fails to cut through in a changed landscape of public opinion - not every issue will allow them to position all their enemies - “luvvies”, “the left” - in such a neat row with the highly emotive issues of child sexual abuse and internet pr0n as a hook to draw attention to their opinionating. This thing has moved at the speed of light in the media cycle, but conversely its centrality to the media cycle has already ended - we’re back to all things petrol.

So what about Kevin Rudd? Continue reading ‘The politics of the Bill Henson controversy’

This is not art?

Published
by
Kim
6 months, 2 weeks ago
in Art, Culture, Ethics, Government, Media, Photography, Sociology and Sydney
. 221 Comments

In the wake of the controversy over the Vanity Fair photographs of 15 year old Miley Cyrus, which photographer Annie Leibowitz defended as “simple” and “beautiful”, Sydney has had a taste of the controversy about artistic representations of adolescent bodies with the opening of celebrated photographer Bill Henson’s latest exhibition at the Roslyn Oxley9 gallery in Paddington. Henson’s exhibition includes photographs of 12 and 13 year old unclothed models, taken with their and their parents’ consent.

Miranda Devine was quick out of the starting blocks to loudly condemn:

Such images presenting children in s*xual contexts are so commonplace these days they seem almost to have lost the capacity to shock.

The effort over many decades by various groups - artists, perverts, academics, libertarians, the media and advertising industries, respectable corporations and the pr0n industry - to smash taboos of previous generations and define down community standards, has successfully eroded the special protection once afforded childhood.

Miranda modified to be safer for work.

Well, there you have it. Continue reading ‘This is not art?’

Disappointment

Published
by
Anna Winter
6 months, 2 weeks ago
in Activism, Foreign Elections and Politics
. 19 Comments

In discussions during the long Democratic primary I’ve heard it suggested a number of times that should Obama not win the nomination, a generation of newly-engaged voters will be disillusioned and may never vote again. While this is understandable, it’s not really a sensible criticism of the process.

Should Clinton actually steal the nomination, by somehow breaking the rules, then this may be a reasonable thing to argue, although it should be clear that if this were to happen, young people’s feelings would be the least of the Democratic Party’s worries. But should she get the nomination by, you know, winning it, frankly I don’t see why some First Time Voters’ (FTV) feelings should trump that.

If I was to be cynical, I might feel it useful to point out that we’re generally talking about acknowledging the disappointment of a group of young first-time voters (mostly male), as opposed to the disappointment of a group of older women who’ve been waiting a lifetime for the chance to see the first female nominee. I guess people figure they must be used to disappointment by now.

But ignoring for a moment the politics of why the feelings of FTV - who have a lifetime of opportunity ahead of them - should be given priority over things like party rules, democracy, electability etc; I think it’s also important to consider the importance of having one’s hopes dashed early on.

Continue reading ‘Disappointment’

John McCain and the future of the Republicans

Published
by
Terry
6 months, 2 weeks ago
in Foreign Elections, Politics, Sociology and USA
. 19 Comments

Cross-posted at Terry Flew’s blog.

Most attention in the U.S. Presidential elections has been given to the Democratic Party, and the wide schism revealed in its support base between supporters of Hillary Clinton (majority of women, Latinos, older voters, lower income, lower average levels of education) and Barack Obama (majority of African-Americans, younger voters, higher income, tertiary educated). It has been cast as “a standoff between the Dukes of Hazzard and the Huxtables”, but its fault lines are pretty clear. This cannot be said for the Republican Party going into the 2008 elections.

John McCain does not bring a strong hand to the election, although the ongoing saga of the Democrat nominee has helped somewhat. There is usually a change in the governing party after eight years of one President holding office. While this was not true in 1988, George Bush gained the presidency with Ronald Reagan having a personal approval rating of about 60%. George W. Bush has a personal approval rating below 30%, and sinking. Even if his approval figures were better, this would be no guarantee against change. Bill Clinton left office with personal approval ratings over 60%, but his Vice-President Al Gore could not defeat the Republicans in 2000.

The position of the Republicans as a party is far worse than that of John McCain as its presumptive Presidential nominee. Continue reading ‘John McCain and the future of the Republicans’

Guest post by Terry Flew: ‘The last trip to send the family pet to the vet’?

Published
by
Administrator
6 months, 4 weeks ago
in Foreign Elections
. 36 Comments

LP’s Indiana correspondent is having a busy night in Bloomington! Here’s Terry’s latest dispatch on the Indiana and North Carolina Democratic primaries.

The Democratic Party primaries may appear to continue the status quo in the campaign, with Hillary Clinton winning Indiana as expected, and Barack Obama winning North Carolina as expected. But the magnitude of Obama’s win in North Carolina (58-42%) and the narrowness of Hillary Clinton’s win in Indiana (52-48%) indicate that the long Democrat contest is all but over for Hilary Clinton.

As one Republican strategist unkindly put it on CNN as the early figures came in, “This is the last trip to send the family pet to the vet.”

However you slice and dice the figures, it is now apparent that Barack Obama will be the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, and that the super delegates will now be close to declaring for Obama, killing off the Clinton’s hope of a palace coup at the Denver Convention.

On the popular vote through the primaries overall, and including the disputed Florida primary (although not Michigan, where Obama’s name did not appear on the ballot paper), Obama has a 49% to 47% margin over Hillary Clinton.

What it means for the Democrats’ chances in November depends on how you read three factors. Continue reading ‘Guest post by Terry Flew: ‘The last trip to send the family pet to the vet’?’

Guest post by Terry Flew: Farewell to liberal Hillary

Published
by
Administrator
7 months ago
in Film, TV, Video etc, Foreign Elections, Media and Sociology
. 18 Comments

LP’s Indiana correspondent, QUT academic Terry Flew writes:

Bloomington, Indiana is where I am at the moment, at the University of Indiana. It is best known as the home of Albert Kinsey, John Cougar Mellencamp, and the ‘Hoosiers’, a basketball team about whom a film was made in 1986 starring Gene Hackman as a coach and Dennis Hopper as a drunk.

Indiana is one of the two states voting tomorrow (Tuesday May 5) in the protracted and increasingly acrimonious Democratic Party primaries. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have worked these two states hard, even though they both typically vote Republican, as the long march to the Democrat nomination continues.

The striking feature at present is just how far to the right Hilary Clinton has turned in the course of this campaign. Having struggled against Obama for most core Democrat constituencies, she has over the last month increasingly pitched her campaign at what are known here as the ‘Reagan Democrats’ - white voters, often older or less educated, anxious about change, deeply patriotic, and suspicious of liberal reformers.

Given that the Clinton years in the White house were viewed by most outside of the U.S. as at least notionally progressive, and that Hillary Clinton was for so long the bete noire of American conservatives, this has come as a bit of a surprise, at least to me. She appeared on the FOX News Channel’s O’Reilly Factor last week, her defence of religion and guns, and her threats to get tough on China and to ‘obliterate’ Iran if Israel is attacked seem to be straight out of the Republican campaign book. And the favour seems to have been returned. She is getting endorsements from FOX News, The Weekly Standard and Rush Limbaugh.

Continue reading ‘Guest post by Terry Flew: Farewell to liberal Hillary’