Blogging politics, culture, sociology and life from Brisvegas
Compare and contrast, as they say, Kevin Rudd in PNG building bridges and restoring relationships and John Howard in Washington ranting about “Islamic fascism” and dwelling on the past.
It’s the exact same dynamic as in the election - Rudd accentuating the positive and looking to the future, and Howard mired in negativity and defending his “achievements”. Still, I thought it was neat that both were overseas at the same time - it really does shine an interesting light on their differences.
…then it probably isn’t true, right?
I don’t know what else could explain this monograph which appears alongside Greg Sheridan’s columns at The Oz:
Greg Sheridan is the most influential foreign affairs commentator in Australia.
Technically this is true. I suppose the marketing people jazzed it up from the first draft - ‘Greg Sheridan is the only foreign affairs commentator in Australia.’
But that shouldn’t deter us from pondering Mr Sheridan’s influence behind Australia’s signing of Kyoto, the dismantling of the Pacific Solution, the impending Iraq withdrawal and our recognition of Kosovo.
Perhaps Mr Sheridan’s influence can best be seen at work in the timing and venue of the former foreign minister’s luncheon appointments.
Nevertheless, the future looks bleak for Mr Sheridan’s influence. As I depart for San Francisco in two days’ time, he stands to lose fully 20% of his readership.
In the months to come, I hope to bring LP readers some up-close views of US education policies. So, until my next missive from across the Pacific, may I bid you farewell from the nicest, gentlest, most sweet-tempered education commentator in the Southern Hemisphere.
A couple of weeks ago, Greens Senator Christine Milne argued that Ross Garnaut, the economist conducting the climate change review for the government, was treating climate change “in purely economic or political terms” and ignoring the seriousness of the warnings coming from the science - and some of his musings about short-term and long-term targets were kind of worrying.
But in his most recent speech (PDF) at the Solar Cities Convention in Adelaide, he clearly articulates the urgency of the issue, and - without saying so explicitly, nails the “60% by 2050″ target from Labor’s election campaign as utterly inadequate.
Continue reading ‘Garnaut gets it’
Fidel Castro has decided that he will be el presidente no more. After suffering an invasion attempt and bungled attempts at assassination, he gets to leave on his own terms which will royally piss off the Cuban émigré in the US and their supporters. It also represents a failure of the cold war hissy fit that passed as US policy on Cuba for many decades.
Hopefully, Castro’s resignation will see a detente in relations between between the US and Cuba and an end to the irrational US policy on Cuba. On the Cuban side, there is a lot that needs to be done to relax restrictions on political freedom as well as improve their human rights record.
A historical what if is would have Castro held onto power so long of the US had adopted more liberal approach to their relations with Cuba?
Then again, maybe the reason for Castro’s resignation is something akin to what happened in this Simpsons’ episode:
Fidel Castro: Comrads, our nation is completely bankrupt! We have no choice but to abandon communism!
Castro’s Aide #1, Castro’s Associates: [sigh]
Fidel Castro: I know, I know, I know… but we all knew from day one this mumbo jumbo wouldn’t fly! I’ll call Washington and tell them they won.
Castro’s Aide #1: But presidente, America tried to kill you!
Fidel Castro: Ah, they’re not so bad. They even named a street after me in San Francisco!
[Aide #2 whispers something into his ear]
Fidel Castro: It’s full of what?
For those that haven’t seen the news, ABC news is reporting that Jose Ramos-Horta is in surgery in the Australian military hospital in Dili after an armed attack on his house by renegade soldier Alfredo Reinado. Reinado was apparently killed in the gun battle.
No idea what to make of it, other than it’s obviously bad news and let’s hope the injuries to Ramos-Horta aren’t too serious.
UPDATE: Apparently, Ramos Horta’s condition is “stable”. There was also an attack on Xanana Gusmao’s home; Xanana is uninjured.
After a long, protracted stay in hospital, Suharto has died, to be buried in the enormous tomb he had constructed as a pseudo-king.
For some unaccountable reason, Suharto’s image in Indonesia seems to have been somewhat rehabilitated in his dotage. Australians will probably remember not only East Timor, but the hundreds of thousands who died during his bloody rise to power in 1965-66 - not to mention the billions of dollars his family looted from what remains a deeply impoverished country.
It will be interesting to see who Australia sends to his funeral.
Update: Richard Woolcott weighs in with the case for the defence. Mr Woolcott seems, in his retirement, to retain the diplomat’s guiding belief that maintaining lines on a map is the greatest achievement possible from a leader.
The Tata Nano has received more publicity than any car launch I can recall. Still, it’s not surprising. A fully-functional car for the equivalent of about 3000 Australian dollars is big news. While a number of writers have pointed out the similarity between the Nano and the Mercedes “Smart”, I reckon a closer analogy is another ultra-cheap car of another age, the Volkswagen Beetle.
Unsurprisingly, there’s been a fair bit of commentary from green groups that the explosion in third-world motoring that cars like the Nano will bring is environmentally unsustainable. Christian Kerr from Crikey (behind their paywall) has used this as an opportunity to indulge in some left-bashing:
The left in the west used to support the aspirations of people in developing nations to a better qualify of life, including better transport…if activists in the West try to deny these people their aspirations, they are guilty of a new eco-imperialism
I’ve always thought that there was a certain irony in the fact that one of George W. Bush’s most notable gaffes when he was on the campaign trail in 2000 was when an interviewer, seeking to contrast his understanding of foreign affairs with that of Al Gore, asked him to name the leaders of various countries. The response to “Pakistan” was “General”, and when pressed, Bush repeated “General”. Well, Musharraf in theory is no longer a General, and I’m sure in many ways that Bush wishes he never did have to learn his name.
What’s been notable about most of the commentary about the death of Benazir Bhutto is that I think most of it is actually far more about us than about Pakistan. Continue reading ‘Bhutto, Musharraf and the West’
According to the SMH, the government is about to conduct a review of its entire fighter plane program, and “everything is on the table”, apparently:
All projects in the $30 billion program will be scrutinised “with fresh eyes”. That includes what aircraft are to be bought, how many, when and at what price. “Absolutely everything is on the table,” a Government source said.
Even if contracts have been signed, as is the case with the Super Hornets, the Government is prepared to break them if the case is compelling. This is a shift from previous Labor thinking.
Now our Prime Minister is treating voters like heedless children who simply haven’t thought carefully enough about what change might mean.
Mr Howard says there is always a risk with changing Government.
And he warns voters flirting with the idea that a Labor election victory is not like an unwanted Christmas present, that can be returned on Boxing Day.
“It’s not like that. It’s much harder than that,” he said.
How insulting.
If you read Tony Abbott in today’s SMH, it’s more of the same - this utter disbelief that the voters could possibly have a mind at odds with the wishes of the current government, and that any voters who are thinking of voting the Coalition out of office have simply overlooked the bleeding obvious about how hopeless, scary and ruinacious a Rudd government will be. The title condescends from the start: The goods or a gamble?
Something unprecedented will happen on Saturday. A highly effective government will lose despite generally good economic circumstances or 12 months of opinion polls will turn out to be wrong. Australians are not reckless gamblers, at least not with the future of their country, so I think it’s much more likely voters will prove the polls wrong than change the government.
Patronising shite.
Hugh Mackay, talking on ABC Radio with Virginia Trioli this morning, made some excellent points which I found largely persuasive. He argues that until this year, the Australian electorate has been largely disengaged from politics for a decade, and Continue reading ‘Careful there voters! You can’t return the Boogieman like an unwanted Christmas present, you know! But Unca John can keep your economy safe…why won’t you trust me?’
I didn’t get to see the environment debate live, but there are plenty of lengthy excerpts available on the ABC’s news site. For entertainment value, I would have loved to see Turnbull’s face on the several occasions Garrett mentioned “25 nuclear reactors” - whatever Turnbull thinks of nuclear on its face, given the fact he didn’t even bother to respond he must know the politics have been shocking for the government.
More broadly, the trouble with the whole setup, of course, is that Garrett shouldn’t have been debating Turnbull at all. Given that climate change policy has effectively been run by the clique who get their scientific information from The Weekly Standard - Minchin, Vaille, Downer, and Howard himself - the fact that Turnbull appears to be a relatively sane conservative on this issue is neither here nor there. Sure, Garrett’s personal positions on the environment are undoubtedly on the fringes of his own party’s spectrum of opinion. But - occasional moments of candour/gaffes aside - the positions he’s taken publicly since becoming a minister are pretty much Labor orthodoxy. Turnbull, however, has spent the last couple of years arguing for positions that are completely contradictory to the well-known views of half the Cabinet he is a member of, let alone the broader party.
Crossposted at Larvatus Prodeo in Exile, where you can discuss this story!
Well, not quite, but they reportedly have 100,000 troops, backed by all manner of heavy weaponry up to and including F-16’s sitting on the Turkish border with Iraq. The reason? An attack by the PKK, the Kurdish guerilla group, on an army base in southern Turkey that left 12 soldiers dead and more missing, probably being held hostage. The Turkish PM is threatening to use the massive force assembled at the border to go after PKK bases in Iraq.
According to Juan Cole the USA has turned something of a blind eye to the PKK - who are, after all, conducting attacks on a NATO ally - because the Kurds are the only reliable allies the USA actually has in Iraq.
While it’s still a big difference between putting on a show of force and actually invading, what has it come to when the most westernized Muslim country in the Middle East - one that is seeking to join the EU, no less - is posturing to invade a country under American occupation? All I can say is thank your favourite deity that Australian forces are in southern Iraq, a long way away from this particular brouhaha.
A few weeks ago, on September 26, the Spanish daily newspaper El Pais published the transcript of a meeting between then Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar and US President George W Bush in Texas on February 22, 2003 — a few weeks before the Coaliton of the Willing invaded Iraq.
The transcript makes clear that Bush had already decided to invade.
Saddam Hussein won’t change and he’ll continue playing games. The time has come to get rid of him. That’s it.
…
There are two weeks left. In two weeks we’ll be militarily ready.
…
My patience has run out. I won’t go beyond mid-March.
Mark Danner has written an essay on what this transcript tells us about George W Bush, to be published in the November New York Review of Books but previewed on Tom Dispatch.
It’s almost inconceivable that Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard and his Foreign Minister Alexander Downer didn’t have similar conversations with Bush. Continue reading ‘Downing Street Memo II’
Larvatus Prodeo is an Australian group blog which discusses politics, sociology, culture, life, religion and science from a left of centre perspective. more»
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