With the relentless propaganda coming from the Coalition on refugees ("they are not refugees but asylum seekers") the Government has lost its nerve and been sucked into a grubby race to the bottom. One of the really good things Rudd did was to more fairly to address this question. We have taken a very small percentage of the refugees fleeing persecution and death from some of the nastiest regimes in the world where we have sent our young men and women to "teach them democracy" at the same time as denying our own responsibilities here and demonstrating to ourselves how two-faced and short sighted we can be. The Greens are the only ones who speak out on this issue. Thankfully we do have them.
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The arguments are interminable, the press self righteous and extraordinarily one sided.
If you frame the argument differently the responses is different and immediate. If an aggrieved party exploded a rocket with a war head in the Melbourne CBD (replace with your own locale) what would an appropriate response be? A diplomatic shrug? A look of annoyance or a military response? We all know what it would be - remember 9-11, the IRA and many, many more? Not apparently in the case of Israel and the Gaza terror. Not one rocket but several a day for years. During this time the hardware is getting more sophisticated due to deliveries from Iran. So what is the appropriate response? Do we count the number of rockets fired or is it a game of counting dead bodies? How many rocket attacks on your child's school would make you demand that your government act now? It is only a matter of time before the Gaza militants have a nuclear device and the capability to deliver it to Jerusalem and/or Tel Aviv. That is a scenario I don't want to hear about or spend too much time in contemplation of. No wonder the rumours of a pre-emptive strike of Iran by the USA/Israel are so rife. Something must be done. It's not easy to sit at the table with people who believe in martyrdom and cosmic rewards for acts of insanity. So it is now 11 years since the world changed - so how are we doing?
After the disastrous Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld regime we have had 4 years of relative calm with Barak Obama mending some of the damage but also struggling with the massive financial fallout of the various adventures that the Bushites took the world on. Even against this background and the wrecking ball that calls itself The Tea Party President Obama has managed to steer a course that has seen a mild recovery in jobs, manufacturing and the domestic economy. As he said in his acceptance speech, there is still a long way to go. China is so tied to the US economy that it has to do something to help to stimulate it. Which is happening. Now there needs to be a shift in the way that politics is done where real world problems look for real world solutions and the wreckers are put out of our misery. Ms Julia is on a similar trajectory here and will get back in the next election. Talent tells against constant negativity. While much mileage was made predicting that the sky was going to fall in on July 1 this year we are heading for the New Year with the sky intact and global warming an issue that most people now believe needs urgent action. You can lie to the people all the time, some will believe you all the time, some will believe you some of the time and some of us always thought you were lying. Go the way of Romney and disappear. With the dust settling on this historic victory for Barak Obama the biggest single takeout lesson for me is that you can't buy an election and that even with the huge funds available to Romney and the right wing ideologues of the Republican party the American people were just not up for being bought.
This is not to say that a lot of people didn't work very hard to deliver this result for America but that they were not driven by the desire to make their 1% richer and more powerful than they already are and at the expense of the rest. We have globally seen the diminution of the idea that government can do something good - be by the people and for the people. Civil society works on the basis of shared rights and responsibilities. We agree that everybody drives on the same side of the road and according to rules that allow for traffic that is predictable and safe. We also agree with the power of the state to regulate thi activity and apprehend those who don't stick to the rules. Governments that stay out of defence, security, education and public infrastructure are not being governmental. Yes we need checks and balances to make sure we don't live in a state where land rezoning comes with a brown paper bag of cash handed over to a gatekeeper secretly in return for a favour at law but in a transparent, open fair system these transgressions can be sorted out. The drive to get government out of civil life is a contradiction in terms and should be tackled head on. If there is too much red tape in a particular area of activity lets look at the whole process and decide. There was a time when conservative was a label for a party or person who didn't believe in rapid change where things were working ok but gradual evolutionary change that wouldn't cause a great deal of disruption to society. That agenda was hijacked a long time ago, or not so long in our lifetime terms, to mean radical, root and branch turning everything upside down that could be equated with the status quo and that did not benefit the robber barons and the wannabees. It is enough. The people of the US have spoken. Health care is good for everyone and the idea that a family can be bankrupted for the need to pay for one of them to have the health care and procedures we all expect and get in the rest of the world is frankly shocking.. You've come a long, long way America and please keep going. Over in Australia as I have gone about my daily tasks the most unlikely range of people grin and talk about how happy they are that Obama is President and Romnesia is ....what? Hi,
I saw this and thought you should see it: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/23/julia-gillard-misogynist-sexism-baby J The decency of the Australian people has come to the front and centre again as Julia mourns the passing of her father. We can all relate to her loss and understand something of what it means.
The condemnation directed at the shock jock that used a Young Liberal function to make a crude and unjustified remark on this event has been rightly condemned by most of us. Not convincingly from the Abbott/Pyne attack dogs though but we've come to expect a complete lack of decency from them. As to the (so-called) radio and media personality he is now expressing shock and dismay at the remarks directed at him some of which I've seen but none of them as extreme as the one's he quotes - I don't doubt that there have been some intemperate remarks made and I don't think that in a civil society we should encourage them. Having said that neither do I think that Jones in his many years of broadcasting has been civil, a supporter of the truth or a good citizen. He has made his trademark the denial of self evident truth in the name of a populism that has been crude, self serving and in the service of those he wishes to ingratiate himself with. And he has managed to enrich himself along the way. If all this noise, including the Murdoch scanda, leads to a better public discussion then some good will have come from what has so far been a sorry and grubby business - sadly though it will probably lead to more of the same with a gloss of self righteous justification on the top. It's been a while since I've been moved to add to this site, a combination of factors but not because of a lack of interest in matters political or environmental.
In what started as a bit of a down period for me in the power watching and seeing the drift to the right in the US and here the last week has been a big uplift. First there was the secret recording of Mitt Romney at a private, close-doored Republican fund raiser for (very) wealthy donors where he was heard to say he had no interest in the 47% of low income earners who weren't going to vote for him anyway. When Mother Jones put the video up on their web site it became the biggest traffic driver they had ever had but also it showed Romney in a light he was not keen to see made public. On analysis it turned out that a lot of the people he dismissed as Obama voters are in fact seniors who vote Republican or did. Then there was our very own Tony who in his trademark negative way criticized our Julia for choosing NYC and the UN over more important business, namely going to Indonesia to meet their President. Sorry Tony he's in NYC too. For once our mass media reported this gaffe and even the dear old tired Age ran with a story about Tony shooting himself in the foot, the one he had in his mouth. Now there's an image. You might ask, "As it has been obvious to us from the beginning that the man will say anything, do anything and it doesn't matter if it is true or not" to him why now? Even that ardent admirer of Tony's, Michelle Grattan, seems to have seen this latest gaffe as too much too often, too stupid, too reckless. Now as the ALP stocks are rising as people realise that the crap they are being fed ("global warming is crap", TA) is just that and the sky hasn't fallen in on July 1, maybe there is some substance to Greg Combet telling us about the deal with the EU on carbon trading, that the majority of the world is moving to some form of trading or market mechanism for carbon abatement and even (in the Coalition vocab) China and India are moving swiftly to take measures to decrease their carbon footprint. California too has measures afoot. So while continuing to lie to the Parliament and the Australian electorate on these issues they are being found out. For me, not a moment too soon. As for the US race it looks like Romney has shot himself and although the obscene amounts of cash at his disposal from the likes of the awful Koch brothers, resource billionaires who were the funding drivers behind the Tea Party it looks like the American voters will not be bought off by a massive tv campaign that insults their intelligence and bypasses democratic values in the name of more buck for the few. Ironically the US is looking more and more like the USSR where a few billionaires feel that there money deserves a louder voice (and a bigger vote) than everybody else. I have been encouraged by the anger of some emails from David Ritvo and Janet Bell on their side of the argument and too many to mention in good old Oz although the frequent discussion with Bernard Rechter continues to underline the point. Thanks to Janet for the link to Mel and Carl being interviewed by Jerry Seinfeld. Many think that the Coalition will dump Tony as his disapproval rating skyrockets but who is there to replace him. Malcolm Turnbull looks logical but we are not dealing with a logical crew. After all we are talking about a Party in coalition with a mob that has Barnarby Joyce as their leader. Go figure. I mentioned the fear discussion below and the two books. I have almost finished the Landzmann book which only gets better as it gets to the end. The Jacobson book has given me a lot to think about and I commend it in advance of sharing my thoughts on it. My old university buddy Philip Frazer, a man of many parts , interviews Jim Hightower from Texas about some of the issues of US policy and politics. If you were in need of some insight and entertainment on these issues do yourself a favour and click here to watch the Youtube.
As we travelled around San Francisco and then on to NYC we met lots of old mates and relatives who found the goings on in the political circus beyond comprehension. The overwhelming feeling was that the rad-Republicans had over-reached and in so doing were dealing themselves out of the White House again and were more prepared to destroy the economy than do anything Obama put up. Sound familiar? Rabbit? It is getting harder and harder to read a newspaper these days what with the Murdoch self interest and now the Gina Riley Fairfax rubbish. No wonder print is dying.
Take the so-called Craig Thomson affair. Fanned by a power hungry crypto fascist in Parliament who the electorate know nothing about really, the FACTS are irrelevant as long as the spin required gets his result. His major domo (Pyne) has to be one of the most odious seen in the job if you don't count Heffernan, and many don't. So, natural justice? Fair go? Trial by media? I once thought Michelle Grattan was a good journalist but sadly that was thirty years ago. She now seems to have fallen in love with the image in the lake. What is strictly opinion is fed to us as factual reporting. Gina has the Press we deserve!! Reading the chat on the Conversation is disheartening too until others who were disgusted by the kangaroo court chipped in. Do I know anything more about this sorry affair? No. But I will not be judge and executioner where I have no role. We have institutions to look after these matters, let them do it. Meanwhile we should tell the heir of B A Santamaria and Mannix that we are not in 1950's Australia and in any case we can't wander about the country saying what we know to be untrue for personal gain while letting the country down into the bargain. Julia and her government has done a great job in a minority gvt on a number of fronts while all the while being dogged by these intellectual midgets with outsized egos and deep pockets. The talent on the front bench clearly outweighs the opposition. Listening to Joe talk economics would be good for a laugh if he wasn't taken seriously by people who either share his ignorance of the dark science or feel they can use it for their own ends. It has been a sad time for democratic process and for our democracy generally. Shame Abbot shame. I was just listening to Abbot/Pyne frothing their daily motion to suspend standing orders. This is a daily ritual that takes the place of policy debate because they just don't have ant that they are prepared to go public with. And where they do the details are so vague, the underpinning assumptions are often wrong and the work that has gone into them is that of the headline catch rather than the hard yards of policy development in the interests of all Australians. Global action to tackle the climate crisis has taken another important step forwards with South Korea’s legislation overnight to establish an emissions trading scheme similar to Australia’s, the Greens said today.
“When a developing country manufacturing powerhouse like South Korea embraces emissions trading because it respects the climate science, it’s time for the naysayers in Australia to take a good long look at themselves,” Australian Greens Leader, Senator Christine Milne, said. “South Korea’s scheme is similar to ours and its international target is about equivalent to 15% cuts from Australia. “We need to give the space to our independent expert Climate Change Authority to look at moves by South Korea and others, as well as the latest science, in its work to recommend what Australia’s carbon budgets should be. “That’s why our emissions trading scheme starts with a fixed price, leaving three years for the Climate Change Authority to do its work before we adopt full trading. “Accelerating global warming is a very real threat to our quality of life, to our economy and to the environment which sustains us. Many of our neighbours are taking ever more serious action to address it. This is not a political game to toss aside if the going gets tough. “There is no real move to weaken the scheme, but the government should join the Greens in lifting our ambition and talking to the community and business about why tackling the climate crisis is so important and what great opportunities for jobs, investment and innovation come from doing so.” |