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March 31, 2006
privatisation by stealth
I've just returned to Adelaide after spending the day walking the federal Parliament in Canberra talking about the direction of health care reform and the problems caused by an expensive user-pays health system:
Then on the shuttle flight home I read that the solution to the health care crisis by Queensland Health is privatisation---aah you can smell the hand of Treasury, can't you. David Gilchrist, writing in the Courier Mail quotes State Opposition health spokesman Dr Bruce Flegg, to the effect that:
it is likely that Queensland Health will increasingly provide health infrastructure while private contractors provide health care, training and research services....the result has been higher healthcare costs and, in some cases, the removal of services from public access....The Government has got itself out of a political fix by throwing some money at health and getting somebody in the private sector to bail them out.
So the Beattie government is creating a private system at the expense of expanding the capacity of the public sector and so deliberately choosing to go to a system that is more expensive to administer.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:58 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 30, 2006
the ALP's no no no strategy
What has suprised me about the both the ACTU's industrial campaign and the ALP's political campaign against the deregulation of the labour market is the strategy of total opposition to reform. It reminds me of their GST campaign-----that was a fiery passionate no no no, then quiet acceptance. Surely there is going to be some form of acceptance, as Australia does need to make the shift to a modern national wages system in a globalised world.
Yet the ALP Right gives every appearance of seeking to return to the pre-2006 industrial relations system with its 4000 awards eight, 8 or more federal, state and territory tribunals and layers of outmoded legislation. Isn't this a self-defeating strategy? Is this yet another example of the Beazley 's tactics of 'piss on them and piss off'?
Why not argue for a simplified modern national system that offers better protection than the Howard/Andrews pro- employee model, which is based on individual agreeements between employees and their employer and gives workers few statutory protections and rights? What will happen is the wages of those with low skills will be reduced as companies will increase their profits by chopping the wages and conditions of their employees.
Isn't a model that enhances productivity but protects the vulnerable in low skilled jobs a better political strategythan no no no?
After all only around 20% of Australian workers are in unions, and there has been a shift in the labour market has been to to a constituency of "enterprise workers" -the contractors, franchisees, consultants and a fairly large chunk of the private sector workforce, many of whom work from home. In this world we rely on our wits and not the unions to protect us.
Is not the way that we work changing? In this new world we do need protections, security and basic entitlements. But the old union model built in federation doesn't make sense---no matter what Sharon Burrows of the ACTU says. It is too rigid and centralized. . A new language needs to be forged---one based around rights.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:34 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
March 29, 2006
Israeli elections
The news tonight is that Kadima has won the Israeli election but with lower than expected seats. and So Kadima has to form a Coalition, maybe with a revitalised Labor, plus others--but who? Does this victory mean a mandate for dismantling settlements? Or a mandate for unilateral action?
Probably. That means the legitimacy of Jewish settlements throughout the West Bank is now well and truly in question.
The rise of the Pensioners Party indicates a protest of the way the elderly have been treated. Linda Grant says that it has to do with economics:
The bitterness and anger they feel at the robbing of their benefits by Netanyahu's Thatcherite economic programmes, their poverty, their humiliating dependence on the kindness of strangers, is an indication of the depths of their betrayal by the state they made; by a government who robbed them blind to hand over their pensions to settlement construction, to give tax rebates and mortgage relief to fanatics who don't give a damn about the state of Israel and its inhabitants, only the land of Israel, this little bit of turf right here that the Torah mentions. Holy ground and to hell with you, whether it's your olive trees growing on what under international law is Palestinian soil, or .you are 75 years old with a bag of rusty medals, struggling to keep warm in winter on the coastal plain.
The other suprise is the strength of the Israeli Right---Israel Our Home--- and its nationalist vision of a greater Israel, despite the humiliating collapse of the Likud, which three months ago was the ruling party. Likud under Benjamin Netanyahu, was shown the exit yesterday by an electorate that relegated the party to opposition, and to fifth place among the contending parties.
In Australia Daniel Pipes, writing inThe Australian, (29 March) comments on the Israeli election:
As Israelis go to the polls, not one of the leading parties offers the option of winning the war against the Palestinians. It's a striking and dangerous lacuna....The Oslo diplomacy ended in dismal failure and so will all of the other schemes that avoid the hard work of winning. Israelis must eventually gird themselves to resuming the difficult, bitter, long and expensive effort needed to convince the Palestinians and others that their dream of eliminating Israel is defunct. Should Israelis fail to achieve this, then Israel itself will be defunct.
What does winning the war mean for this hawk? A greater Israel? A push towards ethnic cleansing-- the expulsion of the Palestinians as Yisrael Beitenu advocates?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 8:12 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
social policy reform
I just don't see it myself, even though it is a common interpretation in the Australian media of the effects of Tony Blair's visit:
Tandberg
I understand that Blair's uplifting oratory has seduced the Canberra Press gallery, who reckoned that Blair highlights the poverty of talent amongst Australian politicians. However, I cannot see how Blair's stance undermines the ALP's support for Kyoto as Patrick Walter asserted in The Australian. Blair confirms the ALP's position surely.
Sure Blair rejects the ALP's opposition to Australia's ongoing involvement in Iraq. What I see is that the chaos and violence of the insurgency in Iraq bears little resemblance to the upbeat pre-war forecasts of Britain, the United States and Australia to improve security, provide for economic development and prosperity and win the "hearts and minds" of the Iraqi people. For all their current talk about not flinching in the face of the decisve battle over fundamental values and terrorism, it's Bush, Blair and Howard who are whistling in the wind about Iraq, not the Beazley-led ALP.
So maybe the talk about fundamental values, vision and guts has more to do with domestic policy and the articulation of social democratic vision in a global world?
The judgement here is that federal Labor has failed to develop such a vision in relation to the economy and the welfare state. Blair, in contrast, has developed a vision that recognizes the role of markets, individual choice and personal respsonsibility and his reforms make health, education, housing more responsive to the needs of users, rather than providers and unions.
John Rokam spells it out in The Age:
It is Labor and its values that are making the party unelectable. And the proof of this is revealed in the attitude Gillard displayed last week. She made great fun of John Howard as a throwback to the 1950s and "the monocultural world he remembers, of white picket fences shielding white families". In 1988 John Howard's policy statement Future Directions famously featured a father and a mother and their two children standing outside a house surrounded by a picket fence. For as long as Gillard remains obsessed with the colour of the faces and the colour of the fence, there's no hope for Labor.On this account the ALP dumps on a job, a family and a home as old-fashioned, and is out of touch with common values. Really, its not what I hear when I listen to the ALP speeches in Parliament about working families, child care, and the casualisation of the workforce.
Unlike the Institute of Public Affairs ALP has not embraced the Evangelical Christian Right's understanding of family values and family life.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 8:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 28, 2006
the great persuader
Well, Tony Blair, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, has been and gone. T'was a fleeting visit. Much political love was shared around by all. This was wrapped up in an affirmation of liberal modernity with strong words against those opposed to modernity.
I missed watching Tony Blair's speech to the joint houses of the Australian Parliament yesterday. I was at the gym. But I caught pieces of it on the television and I watched the joint media conference with John Howard this morning. So I'm relying on my impression of sound bites and headlines.
The Blair man is silver tongued--a magician with words who can carry you away with his optimistic rhetoric about a fundamental transformation in Middle East politics to the point where you have to give yourself a hard pinch. An editorial in the London Daily Telegraph captures this great persuader aspect well:
For Blair's prestidigitation depends on his presence. As long as the conjurer is on stage, we suspend our disbelief. When he goes, we will shake our heads and see that schools are churning out illiterates, hospitals are grimy, policemen fail to catch criminals, tax revenues are squandered.
We suspend our disbelief about Iraq too, don't we when we listen to this defence of U.S. policy in the region. This is a policy based on the pillars of an Americanized Iraq as a replacement for Saudi Arabia and Israel; a policy that tacitly supported an expansionist Israel; one that defines Iran, Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon as the enemy of America. The image of sparking, and supporting, a wave of democracy means we don't question what supports the pillars.
We get so carried away with the image of Sunni, Shiite and Kurd factions negotiating together to form a unitary democratic government that we forget there is there is no Iraqi government, since the squabbling elected politicians haven't formed one.We forget that, when this government is formed, it will be a weak federal government confronted by strong regions that may break up federalism. Or that the aspirations of Iraqi Shiites is to build an Islamic republic. Or that it is the occupation that has fuelled the rise of a radical fundamentalist Islam in Iraq.
We are so bouyed by hope that we forget about the way the Sunni attack on a Shiite shrine in Samarra last month caused cycle of revenge between Sunni-Shiites. Or that Iraq is in a state of civil war, or that Baghdad is surrounded and cut off by guerrilla insurgents who keep on blowing things up.
Then Tony Blair walks off stage, the effects of the spell wear off, and we start to remember how bad things are. We then begin to question the analogies with Nazi Germany and begin to see the rhetorical tricks.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 10:58 AM | Comments (11) | TrackBack
selling ministerial access
I read an op. ed. by Tony Harris in today's Australian Financial Review as I flew into Canberra this morning. Harris is addressing the issue of lobby reform and he highlights why we need to start thinking about reform. He says:
I have been authoriatively told that some lobbyists have recently had to make donations to the Liberal Party when their clients were granted ministerial appointments. Paying for an appointment with ministers in their office takes money-raising to a new low.
Yet payment for access is common in liberal democracy, is it not ? Is not the practice by both major parties of selling places at the ministerial dining table to raise funds a corrupt one? Yet it is accepted as legitimate and not in need of reform.
Lobby reform is not on the political agenda in Canberra, is it. So payment for access as a form of fund raising is only going to increase. We are walking down the American road where big busnss sets the policy agenda.
There paying for access to Congressman is par for the course . Jack Abramoff, the once-powerful lobbyist, lavished luxury trips, skybox fundraisers, campaign contributions, jobs for their spouses, and meals at Signatures, the lobbyist's upscale restaurant. This gives access to the Congressman and the lobbyist policy agenda is connected to campaign contributions. Abramoff's influence peddling on Capital Hill goes close to bribery through the use of earmarking of legislation.
Update: 29 March
Alan Mitchell argues about a different conception of corruption in today's Australian Financial Review--one based on the politicizing the public service. He says that the government's insistence on loyalty from its public servants has helped create the enviorrnment in which corruption went unchecked. This is an environment in which public servants area afraid to to pass on bad news or alert the government to their reasonable suspicions. MInisters are encouraging public servants to withhold politically embarrassing information, and in doing so are guilty of corrupting a critical process of government.
So we have two forms of corruption in Australian democracy.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 10:23 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
March 27, 2006
Indonesia's Australia card
Australia's recent decision to grant temporary protection visas to 42 of the 43 Papuans who reached Cape York in an outrigger canoe two months ago tacitly acknowledges the credibility of the Papuans' claim that they fled "from the intimidation of the killing and the persecution inflicted by Indonesian authorities against us". The Indonesian ambassador to Australia was withdrawn in protest.
An even handed quote:
Like many countries in Southeast Asia, Indonesia has dealt poorly with its minorities. Papua is perhaps the most glaring example, a vast Melanesian territory whose people and culture are starkly different from those of the rest of the archipelago. The Javanese, in particular, who continue to have a dominant influence on Indonesian public life, have shown little patience for the Papuans, their aspirations or their culture.
The Papuan grievances go further than a deep-rooted disrespect for Papuan culture, as they also range from an unfair distribution of the wealth gleaned from its natural resources--eg., from the Freeport copper and gold mine at Grasberg - to political double-dealing in Jakarta.
The nationalists in Jakarta---particularly in the military and the House of Representatives--- see Australia's decision to grant temporary protection visas as tantamount to challenging Indonesian sovereignty over Papua. They are of the view that Australia is out to dismember its vast northern neighbor. That is implausible from the Australain perspective but the nationalists play the Australia card in a campaign to block the shift to giving regional autonomy to Aceh and Papua. The nationalists desire a unified centralized state not a federal one; nationalistic sentiments run on high since the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis ; and nationalism is becoming linked to the US-led "war on terrorism", which is being portrayed as a war on Islam.
John Quiggin has a good post on Australia's double standards in dealing with Iraqi and Papuan refugees.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:32 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 26, 2006
Tony Blair + liberal interventionism
I see that Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, has arrived in Australia. Blair, who is walking into the political twilight, should be included in this image:
Blair has been fatally wounded by the continuing and deepening unpopularity of the Iraq war and is now despised by two-thirds of Labour voters, three quarters of Conservatives, and a clear majority of independents. He is in the process of giving series of three detailed speeches in defense of the Iraq war and the broader struggle against Islamist extremismin the context of liberal interventionism. Blair says:
Over the next few weeks, I will outline the implication of this agenda in three speeches, including this one. In this, the first, I will describe how I believe we can defeat global terrorism and why I believe victory for democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan is a vital element of doing that. In the second, I shall outline the importance of a broad global alliance to achieve our common goals. In the third, in America, I shall say how the international institutions need radical reform to make them capable of implementing such an agenda, in a strong and effective multilateral way. But throughout all three, I want to stress why this concept of an international community, based on core, shared values, prepared actively to intervene and resolve problems, is an essential pre-condition of our future prosperity and stability.
Blair gives thoughtful speeches to be sure. He gives the second speech to the Australian Parliament today. He does have a lot of ground to makeup, since his conception of an international community, based on core, shared values, actively to intervening and resolving problems has gone off the rails in Iraq.
In the first speech; he lays out the principles of his foreign policy: the doctrine of liberal interventionism - the view that democratic countries can no longer stand by while dictators commit hideous crimes against their own peoples. He offers a new ethical, rather than realpolitik, ethos in foreign policy, one that would no longer see the principle of state sovereignty trump all other moral considerations.
Has not Blair savaged this principle with Iraq? Did not Blair invent a threat that was not there? Blair is damaged goods, and responsible for a large foreign-policy disaster. Blair characterises his critics as adhering to a view:
"...which sees the world as not without challenge but basically calm, with a few nasty things lurking in deep waters, which it is best to avoid; but no major currents that inevitably threaten its placid surface. It believes the storms have been largely self-created....This world view - which I would characterise as a doctrine of benign inactivity - sits in the commentator's seat, almost as a matter of principle."
It is 'benign inactivity' as its basic posture is not to provoke, to keep all as settled as it can be, and to cause no tectonic plates to move. Blair says that it has its soft face in dealing with issues like global warming or Africa; and reserves its hard face only if directly attacked by another state, which is unlikely. Blair, in contrast, is for action and intervention with a moral imperative.Liberal interventionism worked well in 1999, when NATO planes were dispatched to bomb Belgrade in an effort to stop Serbs from "cleansing" Kosovo.
It is Blair's thesis, that the struggle in Iraq is pivotal to the defeat of global terrorism, where things unravel. On Iraq he says:
This is not a clash between civilisations. It is a clash about civilisation. It is the age-old battle between progress and reaction, between those who embrace and see opportunity in the modern world and those who reject its existence; between optimism and hope on the one hand; and pessimism and fear on the other...We can no more opt out of this struggle than we can opt out of the climate changing around us. Inaction, pushing the responsibility on to America, deluding ourselves that this terrorism is an isolated series of individual incidents rather than a global movement and would go away if only we were more sensitive to its pretensions; this too is a policy. It is just that; it is a policy that is profoundly, fundamentally wrong.
Persuasive huh. Then I remember the images of torture in Abu Ghraib:--that is progress? That is civilization? That stands for optimism and hope?
It gives another meaning to Blair's claim that in the era of globalisation where nations depend on each other and where our security is held in common or not at all, the outcome of this clash between extremism and progress is utterly determinative of our future here in Britain. Blair has too much Iraqi blood on his hands to be credible about the "battle for modernity".
It is true that the Iraqi people want their government decided by the people. But the US and the UK have failed to deliver securityand basic services such as health, electricity, sanitation and infrastructure. Nor can I see Blair fostering this democratic desire with his support for systematic torture in Abu Ghraib and the actions being blamed on a few lower-level grunts. Blair's credibility is shot. Look at how defends himself:
Of course, and wholly wrongly, there are abuses of human rights, mistakes made, things done that should not be done. There always were. But at least this time, someone demands redress; people are free to complain.
That shrug--'people are free to complain'--- is made worse by the fact that Saddam Hussein had no link with al-Qaida and its terrorism before the invasion--something Blair well knows. It is thanks to Blair's policies that Iraq has become a fertile recruiting ground for jihadists.
Blair is skewered by the gap between between his rhetoric and the reality on the ground. His view that Islamist extremism should be fought through intervention would be more credible if Blair acknowledged that extremism and hatred has been fuelled by the disastrous war in Iraq. This is a necessary admission by those responsible for the war; and a good place to start is when Blair addresses the Australian Parliament tomorrow morning. Don't hold your breath. My guess is that he will portray the Iraq war as part of a global struggle between "democracy and terrorism ", which warrants the continued US-led interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 3:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 25, 2006
AWB: a good quote
The AWB affair--the wheat scandal--- continues to grind away, thanks to the stirling work of the Cole Inquiry. We citizens have lost all sense of the details of events and we often feel that the issue is like this:
However, we know there is more at issue under the surface. An interesting quote in an article by Mike Skeketee in The Weekend Australian, which indicates the politocal reality of power in Canberra, opens up to look beneath the surface:
Departments used to be sources of independent advice for ministers, offering them the benefits of long experience and expertise on issues that they perhaps were confronting for the first time. But, according to former senior Department of Defence bureaucrat and foreign affairs official Allan Behm, "the current public service doesn't proffer advice. It simply carries out what it is instructed to do. I think there is a very serious dumbing down of the public service in that sense."
Well gone are the days of frank and fearless advice delivered by the mandarins of the federal bureaucracy.
If this is the case, then the Government bears responsiblity for AWB lining Saddam's pockets through bribes on wheat exports as the Howard government was going to war with the Barthist regime. From this perspective the senior Ministers (John Howard, Mark Vaile, Alexander Downer) consistently turned a blind eye to 26 warnings before the Volker inquiry began in April 2004, and they initially failed to cooperate with Volker for up to 4 months by handing over classified documents.
The inference?
The Government did not want to know about the allegations against AWB for the use of bribes and its deliberate deception. Trade was more important than busting UN sanctions against Saddam Hussein. The inference? Contempt for the UN sanction regime.
As Sketekee points out the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade the department had a serious conflict of interest: foreign policy required it to help enforce sanctions but trade policy demanded that it promote wheat exports. The Minister, Alexander Downer, would give the direction and the priorities. That's his responsibility---and it was trade not foreign policy.
Downer should be made accountible for his actions, like any one else. The charge? Negligence, at the least.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 1:50 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
March 24, 2006
India & US nuclear deal
From all accounts the Howard Government is drifting towards getting onboard with the American nuclear deal signmed in early March with India. Under a plan formally agreed when Bush met with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the United States would help India build nuclear power plants. India would permit inspections of its civilian reactors, but there would be no oversight of its nuclear-weapons program.
The Bush administration has now asked the US Congress to exempt India from provisions of the Atomic Energy Act that curb trade with nations not party to nuclear treaties, as India is not a signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
I find this deal disturbing because the nuclear cooperation between the United States and India does not conform to the rules of the global non-proliferation regime.
Unlike Iran, India is a nuclear weapon state outside the non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and Washington, driven by geopolitical considerations to contain China, is arguing that India is the "nuclear exception". The key problem with the American deal is the failure by India to give a commitment to freeze production of fissible material for nuclear weapons. Australia is giving every sign of being comfortable with the lack of a cap on India's bomb-making fissible material.
The implication is that US and Australia----tagging along as usual ---is relaxed and comfortable with the further expansion of India's nuclear arsenal.
Where in the hell is the ALP on this? Why aren't they highlighting the double standards involved in the way the US deals with Iran and India over the nuclear issue?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 1:02 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
March 23, 2006
beyond Lib-Lab?
I see that the Australian Fabians had an forum at Glebe Books in Sydney on the Howard Government’s 10 years in power and the impact it has had on Australia. One of the speakers was Julia Gillard, who called for a new Labor vision. What does this look like in the face of the current Lib-Lab look:
Gillard says that:
We cannot shy away from the so-called 'culture wars' out of fear of being wedged by right-wing caricatures of Labor values. In the past, Labor and progressive forces have sometimes derided the fear of change and sometimes embraced it, but neither reaction was right. Unlike the Government Labor can offer a vision of the future that embraces change but moderates its harsher and most destabilising impacts.
What are Labor values now they have repudiated Latham's conception of life lived within the market economy to and his concerns about mutuality, community, or social solidarity. If Labor values are family values for the Labor Right, then what are they for Gillard?
Gillard says that a federal Labor Government could deliver the substance that the current Howard Government has embraced only rhethorically is the argument. A good point. So Labor values for Gillard are the Aussie values of fair go and fair play? How is that different from Howard?
What is the content of change and moderation does Gillard have in mind, given this scenario?
The Sydney Morning Herald's Louise Dodson does not say. So do we have a vision without content?
At this stage we have to rely on Dodson's text, but not soley, because Guy at wsacaucus.org and Liam at Stoush.net were in attendance. From Dodson's text we can gather that Gillard's argument is pressing need for a changed direction in the ALP's political tactics. These had underestimated John Howard, as they had assumed that the PM's use of the politics of fear would be divisive and lead to Howard's repudiation by the electorate. This didn't, and is not likeley happen. Hence the need for different tactics to pissing on Howard then pissing off.
So vision is reduced to tactics. What's happened to the substance?
It's the economy stupid. It's the economy would have been mentioned. Dodson makes no mention of it though.So we have no idea how Gillard links up the economy with battlers and the family.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 5:11 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
The US as an empire of bases
Chalmers Johnson says that as an academic subject, the American Empire is largely taboo in the US. But in actual fact the US is an empire:
Empires are defined so often as holders of colonies, but analytically, by empire we simply mean the projection of hegemony outward, over other people, using them to serve our interests, regardless of how their interests may be affected. So what kind of empire is ours? The unit is not the colony, it's the military base. An Empire of bases---- that's the concept that best explains the logic of the 700 or more military bases around the world acknowledged by the Department of Defense. Now, we're just kidding ourselves that this is to provide security for Americans.
That means the imperial budget is the defense budget.
Johnson considesr the most insidious aspect of US militarism and its military empire is the economic dependence on the military budget, which supports four huge manufacturers with only one major customer.
This is state socialism and it's keeping the economy running not in the way it's taught in any economics course in any American university. It's closer to what John Maynard Keynes advocated for getting out of the Great Depression -- counter-cyclical governmental expenditures to keep people employed. We can't get off it any more. It's not that we're hooked in a narcotic sense. It's just that we'd collapse as an economy if we let it go and we know it. That's the terrifying thing.
It's a military Keynesianism, which has resulted in the military, as part of the executive branch, expanding under cover of the national security state to the point where it's out of control.
Johnson argues that one implication of the huge expansion of executive branch powers since the neoconservatives and George Bush came to power is the failure of Congress:
From George Bush's point of view, his administration has achieved everything ideologically that he wanted to achieve. Militarism has been advanced powerfully. In the minds of a great many people, the military is now the only American institution that appears to work. He's enriched the ruling classes. He's destroyed the separation of powers as thoroughly as was possible. These are the problems that face us right now. The only way you could begin to rebuild the separation of powers would be to reinvigorate the Congress and I don't know what could shock the American public into doing that. They're the only ones who could do it. The courts can't. The President obviously won't.
The republic has become empire with a contradictory logic between its politics and economics. He observes that:
it's extremely unwise for the world's largest debtor to go around insulting his bankers. We're going to send four aircraft-carrier task forces to the Pacific this summer to intimidate the Chinese, sail around, fly our airplanes, shoot off a few cruise missiles. Why shouldn't the Chinese say, let's get out of dollars.
Swapping the Democrats for the Republicans won't do much because:
The political system has failed. You could elect the opposition party, but it can't bring the CIA under control; it can't bring the military-industrial complex under control; it can't reinvigorate the Congress. It would be just another holding operation as conditions got worse.
Conditions getting worse means bankruptcy. There's a thought: the empire becomes bankrupt.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 1:01 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 22, 2006
the evolving US strategy on Iraq
A recent speech by President Bush on Iraq outlining the strategy for the war. The three prong strategy--political, economic and security---is well in hand. The difficulties in Iraq are the price that we must pay for victory. Bush stands for "victory". His liberal critics by implication represent defeat. And in case you've forgotten, we're fighting the terrorists abroad so that we do not have to face them at home.
Tahrir Abdul Samad Numan,an Iraqi exile and peace activist, observes:
If there is an Iraq that is witnessing progress and democracy, it must exist but on a different planet and in a parallel universe! What with a non-existent government, complete break down of law, order and authority, fuel shortages, dirty drinking water, and limited electricity, everyday is a battle for survival. People are living in constant fear; they are being imprisoned without trial, detained and tortured without redress or accountability by the "officials in charge". Is this what the people deserve in post Saddam’s Iraq? It is like living in an endless nightmare.
Behind the neocon veneer of bravado, denial (there is no civil war) and rejection of criticism we have this realpolitik:
Geoff Pryor
Donald Rumsfield, the US Defence Secretary, obliges us by spells out the military logic behind the occuption; an occupation in which Iraq war is creating and inspiring a whole new cadre of terrorists. The US, it needs to be remembered has turned Iraq into a country-sized terrorist training ground.
Rumsfield's logic is this:
The plan is to prevent a civil war, and to the extent one were to occur, to have the . . . Iraqi security forces deal with it to the extent they're able to.Huh? The rationale for US occupation is prevent the outbreak of civil war--ie., civil war would break out if the US were to withdraw--- but when one happens the US will sit on the sidelines and watch the Iraqi security forces deal with it. That is the neocon's day of victory in Iraq will come.
We needn't worry too much about the rigor or validity of Rumsfield's logic because an isolated and beleaguered President Bush says in a recent media briefing that Iraq is progressing toward a viable democracy despite the daily images of car bombings, mutilated bodies and sectarian violence. Bush's identity is that of the warrior-president at the battlements, fighting the evil enemies at the gates and the cowardly liberal defeatists within.
The neocon's belief in victory persists in face of the realities on the ground. That is when beliefs become illusions. Belief as in illusion occurs when the believer is unwilling or unable to confront the facts of the situation.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 4:23 PM | Comments (17) | TrackBack
strange happenings in Tasmania
I've been watching the Tasmanian election with an interested eye, given the LIb-Lab versus Greens opposition scenario. Labor’s success in retaining its majority does not change that political dynamic; one that indicates the long term transformation in Tasmanian politics.
What is most interesting is who is supporting the de facto Lib-Lab corporatist machine. No, not big industry--Gunns and the front group, “Tasmanians for a Better Future” , who were campaigning from the start,with a multimedia campaign advocating stable, majority government. Support from the Big End of town is to be expected in a corporate state. No I mean the conservative Christians or the "religious right" of Australia who are outright theocrats---ie., the Exclusive Brethren.
Consider the passage below, which is contained in todays Daily Crikey. Crikey says that Trevor Christian and Roger Unwin, two members of the Exclusive Brethren, have defended their actions in letters to Tasmanian newspapers. This is what Christian and Unwin say about their anti-Green campaign:
...our campaign was not initiated, controlled, funded or publicly endorsed by the congregation in any way. We believe government to be of God and for this reason we respect it; consequently, although our conscience precludes us from voting, it equally creates a responsibility to testify to persons in government and the community to uphold right Christian principles on which our nation is founded.
Note the theocratic 'We believe government to be of God and for this reason we respect it'. So the state ALP, which is an obsessively anti-Green and deeply conservative party, is now comfortable with God and Gunns as its motto--- a pathway of dumping liberalism and supporting theocracy.
My my. Makes you pause drinking the coffee latte for a moment, doesn't it?
In confronting the people power of environmentalism the Lib-Lab alliance has certainly moved a long way to the right: embracing corporatism plus theocracy. The religious tradition of the old National Civic Council is alive and well in Tasmania in a new form. What was once held to a historical political relic is in the process of revitalization.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 11:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 21, 2006
The ALP finds some courage
Finally, federal Labor has done what it should have done long ago --it's decided to bring the troops home from Iraq. Rather late in the piece, you might say, for the little Americans in the ALP to begin to reconnect with the tradition of an independent ALP policy, starting with Iraq.
Alan Moir
The Big Macs of the ALP Right--Beazley, Rudd, Smith, Swan and Conroy---fell in with the Republican American line on using the war on terrorism to launch an expansionist and aggreesive foreign policy. They desire to stay close to an imperial USA, even if that meant giving support for the US's dirty little war in Iraq. Their perspective is not that much different from the foreign policy establishment in Canberra.
The strategy of the Coalition of the Willing sounds good doesn't it: using democratic reform and economic reconstruction to persuade Iraqis to side with the new government in Baghdad and oppose the insurgents; and to create an Iraqi national military and an Iraqi police force that can shoulder the burden of counterinsurgency against the insurgents on their own.
Yet Australian troops now find themselves in a situation of bloody civil war; one in which the rise of Islamic fundamentalism has been fuelled by the actions of the Coalition of the Wiliing. The Americans have another Vietnam on their hands, and the Howard Government is trapped.
Where did the Little Americans in the ALP find the courage to overcome their fear of great and powerful friends and start to stand up to the Americans and the Murdoch Press? Because the writing is on the wall?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 11:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The White House dreams on
I read that Ayad Allawi, the former US-backed Iraqi prime minister, has declared his country to be in the thick of a civil war that could soon "reach the point of no return". In contrast the White House is saying that it is encouraged by progress on forming a unity government in Iraq and that the insurgency in its "last throes". The optimism is duly echoed in Canberra as expected. But who is listening?
The judgement increasingly is: 'Wrong war. Wrong strategy. Wrong president. Just plain wrong.' President Bush just wants to use the military strength of the US to go around whacking people. Well, Bush and Howard have managed to turned Iraq into a living hell all on their own.The events of the last three years lead to this conclusion: Iraq is a fiasco; George W. Bush is a failed leader and John Howard is subservient to the US.
It's failure written in capital letters. The prospect of an American defeat on the ground is a real possibility. More seriously though the Bush foreign policy logic is plain flawed.
This flaw raises questions about the viability of the US's long-held geostrategic dominance in the oil-rich Middle East. Afghanistan looks shaky and Pakistan very wobbly.
President Bush's position in his 2006 State of Union speech is this:
"Dictatorships shelter terrorists, and feed resentment and radicalism, and seek weapons of mass destruction. Democracies replace resentment with hope, respect the rights of their citizens and their neighbors, and join the fight against terror. Every step toward freedom in the world makes our country safer--so we will act boldly in freedom's cause."
He gets a big applause in Congress for the rhetoric. It is assumed that s democracy also improve U.S. security --as democracy grows in the Arab world, the thinking goes, the region will stop generating anti-American terrorism. It evokes the image of a totalitarian menace that could plunge the world into a century of violence every bit as hellish as the 20th century was.
So how come Hamas? How come the Shiites, who are sympathetic to Iran, will form the Iraqi government? That's what democracy means in the Middle East. Thsi indicates that democratization produces victories for Islamist political groups, because they are the best organized and most popular political movements in the region.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:23 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
March 20, 2006
critical Israeli voices
This editorial in Hareetz about withdrawal from the occupied territories suprised me. It is referring to the promise by the leaders of the Kadima party that they intend to carry out an additional unilateral withdrawal in the West Bank after the elections, while canceling Israel's commitment to the road map. Hareetz states:
The number of seats that Kadima is receiving in the polls, combined with those received by other parties that favor leaving the territories, indicate that there is broad public support for another move, and a major one. The obstacle on the path to carrying out another withdrawal is not Hamas, because ending the occupation is a necessity that does not depend on the nature of the occupied party's leadership. Rather, it is the abstract term "settlement blocs," which has gained too much weight in Israeli discourse and appears to reflect a new mistaken idee fixe. The number of "blocs," as well as their size, changes constantly, and the appetite for annexing territory has not waned for a moment. Avi Dichter, one of Kadima's senior members, talks of the Hebron-Kiryat Arba bloc, the Karnei Shomron-Kedumim bloc, the Ofra-Beit El bloc and three other blocs that would not be evacuated. This is not a withdrawal and it is not even worth discussing: It is merely talk about ending the occupation without ending it.
That is a critical voice inside Israel. But before we get too carried away we should remember that the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel--- one of unwavering support for Israel. That support has been driven by domestic politics. The activities of the ‘Israel Lobby’ have convinced Americans that US interests and those of Israel are essentially identical. Israel is thus seen as a crucial ally in the war on terror, because its enemies are America’s enemies. The argument is made here
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political differences
The conventional media interpretation of the weekend's state elections in Tasmania and South Australia is that they cement a pattern of unprecedented stability in the Australian political landscape.
Sharpe
In The Sydney Morning Herald Steve Burrell says:
No federal, state or territory government elected in the last eight years has been voted out of office since, and the states have been universally Labor since the party regained power in South Australia in 2002.In Tasmania, Labor has again held majority government, despite a swing against it, and the thumping victory handed by South Australian voters to Mike Rann reaffirms strongly this trend of incumbent dominance.
Well yes. It is true that the ALP at a state level is prudent with budgets, socially conservative, business-friendly, quick to play the law and order card, and strong on media management---Mike Rann, Bob Carr, Peter Beattie and Steve Bracks all embody the three Ps: pragmatic, populist and "presidential". They also are opposed by weak and factionally divided Liberal oppositions. And many people who voted Coalition federally have shown they're happy with Labor at state level to deliver public services such as health, education and public transport.
That is not the full story.
What is missed by this interpretation is the differences. For instance, the voters in SA did put strong checks and balances on the Rann Government through giving No Pokies Nick Xenophon over 20% of the primary vote for the Legislative Council. It is the Independents not the Democrats who are the third force in SA politics--the ones who are trusted by citizens to keep the bastards in the House of Assembly honest. Part of keeping the bastards honest is to ensure that Rann does not abolish the Legislative Council to ensure his executive dominance.
Both Liberal and Labor parties have to now adjust to a situation of their own supporters abandoning them to support Nick Xenophon as an Independent. The nastier their attitude to Xenophon and the Legislative Council the greater the support for Independents who do care about what happens to vulnerable South Australian citizens.
John Warhurst, writing in the Canberra Times, offers a variation on the conventional interpretation. He says that:
While these elections are not inherently uninteresting, everything is stacked against them carrying any national interest. None of the usual interest factors apply. On Sunday, when it is expected that both Labor governments will be returned, neither John Howard nor Kim Beazley is likely to have much to say apart from courtesies and platitudes....But even an improved Labor performance in either state could hardly be interpreted as having federal implications. Over the term of the Howard Government, even occasions when state Labor has blitzed the Coalition haven't translated into federal success.
The SA state election has a national warning. Beware the temptation to clip the wings of the Senate.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:34 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 19, 2006
Media reform--back to the past
John Quiggin has a good post on Senator Helen Coonan's discussion paper. That paper supposedly provides a good road map for the proposed media reforms in Australia, and suggested that media technology would enhance the diversity of content.
Adopting the worthy perspective of competitive markets against the media monopolists Quiggin states:
...that we now have the worst of both worlds: lots of intervention, but in the interests of monopolists, not the public...The interests of the Australian public in diversity, choice and competition have been disregarded completely. Such a deal could never have been pushed through an Opposition-controlled Senate.
We would have had a better media policy as it would have been more receptive to consumer interests. What Howard and Coonan are proposing is one that takes us back to the past away from a digital world by offering the conventional free-to-air broadcasters shelter from the internet storm. So we are going to get even more reformated news gathered by fewer journalists in the corporate media wth us bloggers providing more commentary.
Quiggin observes that:
It is dismaying to think about all the options that are being foreclosed here. We could have dozens of channels, limited only by the availability of content to fill them (a limitation that is becoming steadily less severe as the digital revolution reduces the costs of creating video). There are all sorts of possibilities for niche services, most of which will never see the light of day. Instead we are being offered the same half a dozen options we’ve had for more than a decade: three commercial free to air networks, two public broadcasters and Foxtel monopoly, with some grudging extensions for datacasting.
The conventional television media and new players (Macquarie Bank?) will shift to, and launch, new niche datacasting delivery services but these platforms will not deliver more diversified sources of news.
Still a new market is developing beyond Coonan's horizon, and it is driven by young consumers. My judgement is that consumers are deserting analog television for shows downloaded over the internet, just as they are doing with their music, thereby opening the door to media diversity. High speed broadband is the key, given that iPod's are capable of showing TV shows and playing music downloaded from the US. That indicates the possibility of a flood of content coming in from overseas, and Australia falling behind in the production of digiital content for interactive TV, mobile phones and broadband.
The free-to-air media companies are going to become increasingly irrelevant as the changes in the market place deepen.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 9:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 18, 2006
SA state election: checks & balances
I've just voted in the SA state election: --for the ALP's Jane Lomax Smith in the seat of Adelaide in the House of Assembly. And then for No Pokies Nick Xenophon, the Greens and the Australian Democrats in the Legislative Council. My central concern is the balance of power in the Legislative Council. We South Australians should be worried about what happens to the Legislative Council, if we are worried about democracy.
The media see it as a race to the line:
In these terms it is a lay down misere for the Rann Government to be returned in its own right in South Australia (still a 5% swing to the ALP say the polls), and for the Australian Democrats to lose both seats in the Legislative Council. So it is a question of ensuring that the balance of power in the Legislative Council lies with the left-of-centre social democrats as much as possible. I do not want Family First holding the balance of power--which is what the ALP prefers, if it cannot win the Legislative Council its own right. It does look as if this 2006 election will reinforce the shift in the political landscape away from the Democrats as a third force to Family First.
What annoys me is not the race per se but the tactics. The right wing ALP is preferencing the Shooters Party ahead of the 'give it a go' Nick Xenophon who has the interests of vulnerable South Australians at heart. This tactic indicates that the Rann ALP desires no constraints on their power.
And the election?
Buiness may be onside with the Rann Government, but the money paid into the River Murray Levy by citizens has not been translated into extra environmental flows. The River Murray has disappeared as an issue in this election--its more about the economy, private sector wealth creation, past achievements and promises galore on hospitals. The silence on the environment reflects the way the Rann Government has gone very quiet on water reform. It is dragging its heels, and deserves to be penalized by the National Water Commission in national competition payments.
Still, media slick populist Rann deserves to be returned for another 4 years, given his past performance. He has the self-seeking factions and their white bread politicians under control and is open to divergent groups in civil society. The Liberals really are a hopeless lot and, even though a socially and economically conservative Rann Government is but a pale alternative to the Liberals, Rann has done enough to be given the opportunity to govern in his own right in the House of Assembly.
But a law and order ALP state government, full of petrol heads and censors, sure does need to have some checks and balances on its power. It plans to abolish the Legislative Council, as is demanded by Business SA. Executive dominance is what is being sought by the Rann Government. That is the real battle line isn't it. Not the race to the line.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 10:03 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 17, 2006
US economy on the slippery slope
The US Commerce Department recently reported that the United States' current-account deficit for 2005 was US$804.9 billion, up from $668.1 billion in 2004. In the fourth quarter, the current-account deficit was $224.9 billion, up from $185.4 billion in the third quarter. In the fourth quarter, the current-account deficit exceeded 7% of gross domestic product (GDP). Hell, that's even worse than Australia.
Some are saying that the US current-account deficit could easily top $1 trillion a year by the second half of 2006. A sobering paragraph from Brad de-Long on the US current account deficit:
This year we in the United States may import $1 trillion more of goods and services than we export. Since American citizens and residents are going to buy perhaps $400 billion of assets abroad this year, that means that our current configuration of trade and asset prices can last only as long as foreigners are willing to buy $1.4 trillion gross of American assets each year. How long will they want to do this? How long will we let them do this? ... When foreign asset purchases fall back to sales, our exports have to be priced to be as attractive to them as their exports are to us--which means a dollar 40% lower in value than it is today.
At some point, the deficit will have to correct as the US trade deficit cannot continue to widen for ever.
The US has to shift its resources to export and import-competing and supporting industries yet Ford and General Motors not well positioned to produce attractive, smaller and reliable vehicles for the overseas market. Yet Chinese economic developments continue to erode the US means of domination of the world system.
Brad Sester points out that the US:
...needs about $80b a month to finance its current account deficit ($70b for its trade deficit). That can come from the world's banks, from foreign direct investment (in excess of US investment abroad) or from the sale of long-term debt and US equities. Recently, it has come from the sale of long-term debt....So who is doing the buying? China for sure. Brazil too. They bought dollars in January to offset all the foreign hot money chasing yield in Brazil.
China is helping to prop up the US economy. Yet the US is working to create balance of power alliances to contain the growing economic and military power of China--only its not being called containment is it?
So why would the US make an enemy of someone financing its current account deficit? Why continue to bash an economic friend? The US has chosen to borrow from the rest of the world to fund its deficits and wants to dictate the terms on which the Chinese provide the nearly $800 billion in outside capital per year. The Chinese are not willing to play to those rules.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 12:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
whistling in the wind
A paragraph from the editorial in today's Australian newspaper says:
Australia is a middle power with middle-power responsibilities. But we are a substantial middle power, the world's 14th largest economy, with stable government and a highly competent military. We therefore have responsibilities to contribute to global security and economic order. In supporting the US effort to spread the values of democracy and human rights in the Middle East, and in fighting the evil of terrorism there, Australia is not only doing the right thing in principle, it is furthering its own national interests.
It's the deputy sheriff policing argument isn't it. And fighting a Sunni insurgency aqainst the continuing US occupation in Iraq is misrepresented as fighting the evil of terrorism.
No wonder this is the consequence:
And this is the way the US and Australia spread the values of democracy and human rights in the Middle East. An attack on the Sunni-dominated city of Samarra, 125 kilometers north of Baghdad, which has been the nucleus of the national resistance since the fall of Baghdad.
The democracy rhetoric is no longer plausible or even persuasive. The reality is that of a central government in Iraq---without sovereignty, the means of coercion, administration and significant economic resources --cowering in Baghdad's Green Zone. The Americans occupy their bases, and any place they care to temporarily put their troops, but no place else. In southern Iraq the Shia religious parties, and in the north, Kurdish parties, each have their own militias and established local governments that are at odds with the central government and the Americans.
The Australian is whistling in the wind. So are Condelezza Rice and Alexander Downer, who are still singing from the same songsheet--- that Iraq will overcome the insurgency and move towards a liberal democracy. The one songsheet the two voices should lbe singing from is 'cut and run'. If the people the U.S. military is ostensibly protecting want it to go, why do the soldiers stay?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 9:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 16, 2006
Israel: Australian debates
I've just been catching up with last weeks New Matilda. I've come across an article by David Knoll entitled 'Jewish Self-Determination' (subscription required). Knoll seems to think that the Australian critics of Israel's policies do not accept the Jewish people right to self-determination and to form their own nation-state.
It's a furphy. Of course we do. What is being placed in question by the critics are the practices of the Israeli State to the Palestinian people and the Palestinian Authority.
On this issue David Knoll, who is President of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, and a key figure in the Australian disaporia says:
History now recognises that the Jewish people, even before Israel was born, accepted and have reiterated their willingness to live in peace alongside their Arab neighbours, including the Palestinians, on the condition that each extends to the other the right of peace and security. Israelis know that peace requires compromise, often painful compromise, and they have more than once proven their willingness to give up territory for the sake of peace.The Jewish people, however, know that compromise must be reciprocal and it must be genuine.
Fair enough.
I scanned the rest of the article for an account of the displacement of the Palestinian people in the creation of the Israeli state, the ongoing occupation, the settler movement, illegal settlements, the Zionist idea of a Greater Israeli and the destruction of Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, or state assassinations. Does not reciprocal and genuine compromise involve the issue of occupation?
There was no mention of the Israeli occupation by Knoll. It doesn't appear to exist historically. The rest of the Knoll article was all about Israel having to defend itself from the weaker Palestinians--ie., the Israeli need for security.
So the key issue--occupation-- is avoided by Knoll. Yet it was the expansionist occupation of Palestinian land in Gaza and the West Bank by the settler movement, sanctioned by the state, that gave rise to the claim that the practices of Israeli state are brutal colonial ones.
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forging a containment China strategy
One characterstic of the Bush Administration's attitude to empire--establishing a global Pax Americana--- is its unilateralism. This means that alliances, economic or political, and international law inevitably hinder the most powerful nation and serve to blunt the overwhelming power of the United States. What constrains the US as empire today is not just the international terrorism on its borders. Nor is it the threat Iran poses to the US's regional interests in the Middle East. It is also the rising economic power of China, and the pace and reach of its military build-up.
America's worsening problems in Iraq is beneficial to China's global standing, diplomatically and militarily as it provides an opportunity for China to counterbalance U.S. hegemony and create a multipolar world.
The US neo-cons seek to contain China, aided by a willing Japan and a compliant Australia. China's presence has the effect of blunting US power in Asia, and it challenges the neo-con assumption of preponderant American power. Consequently, the United States' recent endorsment of India's nuclear weapons program, endeavoured to bring India into the American camp as a counterweight against China. China was the ghost at the US-Indiia banquet - an unspoken presence that no one really talked about. The US is intent on maintaining its dominant position in Asia-Pacific indefinitely, and in solidifying its global pre-eminence through military superiority.
I doubt that during Condelezza Rice's forthcoming visit to Australia there will be much explicit public talk about creating a new regional balance of power that forges a China containment strategy.
Over at China Matters China Hand argues that the Bush containment strategy toward China is based upon the premise of unmatchable military force that permits the U.S. and its allies to pursue:
... an aggressive China strategy—including the willingness to escalate to armed conflict if the opportunity presents itself—without fear of excessive consequences.American unilateralism is predicated upon the idea that U.S. backing will embolden client states to risk the prospect of military confrontation with China.The result of this policy is defense pacts that are supposed to enable to the militarization of foreign policy i.e. including the increased threat of force in the strategic equation.
This is dangerous territory. As China Hand points out such pacts are intended to be destabilizing, and lead to what is supposed to be for the world’s only superpower a virtuous cycle of escalating tension, culminating if necessary in armed conflict that the U.S. camp is uniquely positioned to survive and profit from. Iran is a good example of this. it leads to pre-emption. The centerpiece of United States unilateralism is "pre-emptive military actions" all over the world. The imperial 'republic' becomes the sherriff.
So the opportunity exists for Australia to asserts independence and advocate the foreign policy objective of constructing a multi-polar world, rather than a global order dominated by one superpower. Will the Howard Government have the courage to publicly put some limits around American unilateralism? Will they tell Condelezza Rice to go take a reality check? That the US should accomodate itself to China's "peaceful rise" to major power status and not endeavour to actively thwart it. Or will the Howard Government piously defend the realpolitik of US national interest and assert its tacit role of being a deputy sheriff?
Will the senior ministers tell Rice and her entourage that her realist form of containment is reckless and foolish and imperils Australia's place in the world? These are unfashionable views--untimely ones.
Update: 16 March
George Mulgan, writing in the Canberra Times, supports my account. He says that:
America's Asia strategy is increasingly all about China. The United States is fixated on China's emergence as a peer competitor, and seeks to maintain the current balance of power in East Asia in its favour. This represents a classic hegemonic response to the rise of a rival great power.America will not be able to balance China alone into the future. It needs allies...US policy has consistently been to try and cement the third side of the triangle between Australia and Japan, with China's rise adding a new urgency to this approach. Japan has previously been a reluctant party to these three-way arrangements
Mulgan concludes by saying that 'It is vital that Australia and Japan not allow America to depict China as a common bogey and for Australia to ensure that its China policy serves its own national interests, not those of the United States.'
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March 15, 2006
party politics
Though factions, as informal sub-groups coalescing around ideas or individuals, are part of any organization, the ALP's factions just don't work anymore do they? The events of the last week or so have confirmed what Mark Latham said in the Lathman Diaries.
Bill Leak
The factions are collapsing from within as they are being driven by personal alliances and differences. The factions now lack a philosophical/political core, they rarely speak for anyone but sections of the trade union movement, and they routinely destroy the trust upon which their agreements are based. With the rise of this kind of machine politics we have the absence of good public policy and an indifference to community building and social capital (mutual trust and co-operation). We have social and economic conservatism by default.
Was there any discussion in the media of Beazley's greenhouse climate policy that was released last week? Did any one notice? Did it break new ground beyond its commitment to sign up Australia to the Kyoto Protocol and set a mandatory emission reduction target--60 per cent reduction in greenhouse emissions by 2050? Was it innovative policy? Since it never got any air in the media, there was little media discussion of the two key policies for a cleaner coal industry and a solar power industry. How is he going to ensure the latter?
Update: 15 March
In an op.ed. in The Australian Barry Cohen writes:
Any reform will be extremely difficult for it requires those who are now the main beneficiaries to concede power. Don't hold your breath. Politics is about numbers and the fewer there are the better the bosses like it. Nothing agitates them more than a sudden influx of new members into key branches, particularly when preselections are in the offing. They prefer loyal spear carriers who will increase their power, rather than talent.
The factional overlords rule and they do so by pulling the levers to ensure a particular result. What does that mean for social reform, social justice and the social democratic project?
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Media reform: much ado about nothing
So Senator Coonan has signalled the Howard Government willingness for media reform but not much commitment. The Senate can no longer be blamed this time around for the cautious reform-- all we have is a "discussion paper" after a decade of media reform talk.
Geoff Pryor represents the critical commentary, and for good reason. It is proposed that there will be:
a relaxation of the cross-media ownership laws and foreign ownership provisions; but there won't be any decisions or legislation whether to wind back the restrictions for at least another year, and the proposal possibly won't be put before Parliament until 2010.
limited concessions to Foxtel with respect to the current anti-siphoning provisions that restrict Foxtel from screening certain programs (mainly sport) unless they are available on free-to-air;
a pushing back of the transition from analog to digital--- to 2010 and 2012 with the removal of some content restrictions;
a continued moratorium on new free-to-air (FTA) TV networks;
limited digital services on other platforms (deregulation of broadband internet TV), but there will be regulated licences for innovative new internet TV and mobile TV offerings.
The upshot of this minimal reform?
It primarily protects the established players--the media tycoons, Rupert Murdoch and,James Packer. The lifting of cross-and foreign-ownership restrictions would allow Rupert Murdoch's News Limited to diversify into television; James Packer's Publishing & Broadcasting Ltd, would be able to buy newspaper assets; and foreign media giants, such as the US's Time Warner and Viacom, can buy Australian publishing companies such as Fairfax.
So the media industry is allowed to consolidate to enjoy greater market power and cost savings, while retaining its protection from new competitors. It's good news for the corporate media as they can continue to make money for shareholders by delivering consumers to advertisers. It means that the free-to-air networks will continue to resist delivering a new digital future and making Australia a dinosaur of the analog age.
The media takeovers to consolidate TV and radio will led to the speed up of the ongoing rationalisation of newsrooms and to the downsizing of journalists. So we have fewer journalists to produce more content for the internet and to pay TV that supposedly supplement free-to-air TV and radio. It's more of the same kind of media isn't it, apart from the red herring talk of adverts on ABC. There is very little here for consumers.
When is media policy going to start from the public interest and work back to an industry structure that serves that purpose?
So how are the existing monopolies in print media ownership in our capital cities going to be challenged? How will the lack of media diversity in SA, Queensland and WA be addressed and how will competition against the News Corp monopoly be encouraged in Adelaide or Brisbane? Is it the provision for a minimum number of commercial media groups will operate in a single market---four in regional markets and five in mainland state capitals. How does that stop the Howard Government preventing a foreign media company starting up a new Adelaide newspaper in competition with News's tabloid, The Advertiser?
Will the Nationals take a big stand on media reform to ensure media diversity, competition and localism for regional Australia? They have an opportunity given the effects fo these reforms will be a more concentrated and powerful media industry.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 6:54 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
March 14, 2006
Iraq:--a Pandora's box
More violence in Iraq, which is aimed at provoking sectarian warfare and forcing the US out, is reported in the media. Words, such as "victory" and "mission accomplished", are yesterdays words and are no longer being used, even in Australia.
Today's talk from Washington is about encouraging a broad-based government of national unity that can win trust with participation by Sunni Arabs, Shiite Muslims and Kurds; and transferring security responsibility to the new Iraqi army and police to that government. Bush's vision is that of a freely selected permanent government asserting its sovereignty over the country, building an administrative infrastructure, and rising to the challenge of governing an unruly and often violent constituency.
The background context is a looming civil war. It is a consequence of regime change by the US to establish a pro-American regime in Iraq, with Australia tagging along to support the US foothold in the Middle East. It is a looming iivil war with the Iraqi government lacking the capacity for exercising sovereignty.
Hugh White, writing in The Age, comments that:
The failure in Iraq is not a failure of execution; it's a failure of conception. The occupation and political reconstruction of Iraq was not a good idea badly implemented. It was a bad idea that no amount of administrative skill, political savvy, cultural sensitivity or military firepower could have made work.
Iraq's National Security Minister, Abdul Karim al-Enzy, is critical of Washington for interfering in Iraq's domestic affairs. He says:
The truth is the Americans don't want us to reach the levels of courage and competence needed to deal with the insurgency because they want to stay here. They came for their own strategic interests. A lot of the world's oil is in this region and they want to use Iraq as a battlefield in the war on terror because they believe they can contain the terrorism in Iraq. We don't want to be a part of international problems - the US has a problem with Iran, but as an Iraqi government, we don't. We are not a part of the Israel-Palestine problem, but the deployment of foreign forces in Iraq puts pressure on that issue."So when are the neo-conservatives going to say that they are wrong? Or that the American objective in Iraq has failed. Or acknowledge that the invasion and occupation of Iraq has opened a Pandora's box to reveal the gates of hell, with the reverberations from the Iraq conflict rippling across the Middle East?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 9:38 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 13, 2006
a neo-liberal mode of governance
I think that Philip Mendes' account of the federal Treasurer Peter Costello's perspective on the welfare state is right. Mendes argument is that Costello's perspective is a neo-liberal one, not the sociallly conservative one of John Howard.
The Sharpe cartoon captures the classic opposition between the free or deregulated market and the wefare state of social democracy in terms of the imagery of Star Wars.
A neo-liberal mode of governance is characterised by four main features:
*welfare dependency in that government welfare programs have a "perverse" effect: that is, they produce poverty instead of relieving it;
*mutual obligation that is based on the 19th-century distinction between the deserving poor who deserve support, and the undeserving poor who are to be disciplined;
*charitable welfare which reverses the modern shift to state-guaranteed income security entitlements to return the provision of welfare to private charities and churches;
* public choice theory and the exclusion of advocacy groups who have "captured "process of democratic government then allegedly manipulate the redistributive process to their own advantage.
Mendes rightly says that Costello is arguably more influenced by economic liberalism than social conservatism. In contrast Howard's social conservatism aims to undermine the value-free welfare state in order to restore traditional social values and morality, but also tends to act as a brake on narrowly economic judgments and agendas.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 4:02 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 12, 2006
SA election: Lib-Lab
Poor old SA. Once the media used to say Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide. Now it is Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane. Though SA is an attactive place to live, it has little by way of economic opportunity. Will it become economic stronger and more sustainable? Or willl it's population continue to get older, sicker and die out?
Key questions for an state election are they not? But then we have the Adelaide Cup, the Festival, Womadelaide and the Clipsal 500 this week--the last week of the election with the ALP still on a 5% swing to it.
Dean Janesch asks a good question:
Would it really make any difference which party won the election? To the true believers, who are superglued to their party's label, it would matter. They tend to feel that everything about their party is good and everything about the other, evil. But would there be any significant differences for the ordinary citizens, for the economy, and for the state?
Not really he argues. He suggests that the election is only about tiny issues, with the real competition between images, personalities and styles, and concludes:
If so, then any radical, different, original, lateral-thinking policies will have to come out of the Legislative Council. Perhaps voters need to take a bit more interest than usual in their votes for the Upper House.
I agree. Do voters know enough to give the Legislative Council some muscle so that it can act as a countervailing power to a dominant executive? I doubt it. Most vote 1 above the line.
Meanwhile the health of the River Torrens continues to deterioriate from alga blooms.
There are few policies from either of the major parties on the environment to take SA down the pathway of becoming more ecologically sustainable and economically strong. Both parties mostly turn a blind eye to the regulation of pollution caused by big business. This is especially the case in the Upper Spence Gulf region.
The preference deals means that the Democrats will lose 2 seats, Family First will gain one with the Greens and Independent (No Pokies Nick Xenophon) fighting it out. Sadly, Family First is not going to use the power of the Legislative council to put much pressure on this issue, even though pollution in Port Pirie and Whyalla affects families as heavy metals pollution causes kids to become sick.
SA remains wedded to pollution-creating technologies to create jobs and growth.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:55 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 11, 2006
Iran: on the way to war?
There is increasing talk in the media about the possibility of an air attack on Iran by Israeli or US forces would be aimed at setting back Iran’s nuclear programme by at least five years. It indicates that a diplomatic solution to the profound differences between Washington and Tehran is becoming progressively less likely. As major difficulties persist and possibly intensify, the possibility of military action by the United States or Israel increases. Presumably, a US attack, which would be larger than anything Israel could mount, would also involve comprehensive destruction of Iranian air defence capabilities and attacks designed to pre-empt Iranian retaliation.
Amin Saikal, writing in The Age, says that if:
Washington and some of its allies, especially Israel, think that they can pressure the Iranian Islamic regime into submission on its nuclear program, they may find that they have been mistaken. Iranian Islamist leaders - whether hardline or moderate - are now united on the nuclear issue and have successfully turned it into a symbol of Iran's historical struggle in support of preserving its national identity and independence. Most Iranians have viewed their Government's stand as rightful against what they perceive to be a growing American and Israeli threat. The more the US threatens Iran, the more it is likely to unite the Iranians behind the Islamic leadership, irrespective of their internal differences and misgivings about the regime.
A military operation against Iran would not be a short-term matter as it would set in motion a complex and long-lasting confrontation. An attack on Iranian nuclear infrastructure would signal the start of a protracted military confrontation that would probably grow to involve Iraq, Israel and Lebanon, as well as the USA and Iran.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 9:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 10, 2006
nuclear games-US style
I'm not all that comfortable with the results of Bush tour of India and Pakistan:
India has not even signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), but the US has, and in doing so it's agreed to not help any other countries in their nuclear-weapons prgramme.
Bush's tour indicates that the US now regards India as a key partner in its regional security interests, not least because India is seen as a powerful counterforce to the growth of Chinese influence. Presumably, the Bush administration is aware that good relations with India will cause internal problems for the regime of President Pervez Musharraf, but it considers that benefits of having India on side outweighs any negative effects this will have in Pakistan. So Pakistan plays another card--an alliance with China and Russia.
I'm uneasy because things are getting real messy on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border. The Taliban units inside Afghanistan are building their supplies to take the offensive on a large scale inside Afghanistan. To do this they require safe access to and from Pakistan. Musharraf is under considerable pressure from Washington to sustain military activity on the Pakistani side of the border; yet the more he does this, the more he is likely to provoke local antagonism to his regime.
The pro-American Musharraf regime is caught in a trap and is being squeezed. Either General Pervez Musharraf plays along with a Taliban plan for access into Afghanistan, or he comes down firmly on the side of the US. Neither option offers much respite from the pressures mounting against the regime.
Are not Muslims coming out in large numbers to protest against US policies in Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan in both India and Pakistan. How long will the Musharraf regime last? What happens if it falls? An Islamist regime takes its place, one connected to Iran? Has the Bush administration factored the consequences of this into its great state politics?
What does all this mean for Australia. Our troops are currently helping the US fight the Taliban in Afghanistan. This is an unstable region. I cannot see that it is Australia's national interest to be involved in a civil war in Afghanistan.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 11:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 9, 2006
good news from Iraq
I read that the commander of Australian forces in the Middle East claims that coalition troops are turning the tables on al-Qa'ida in Iraq, and that the ability of insurgents to mount effective attacks steadily diminishing. Brigadier Paul Symon 's message was repeated by the Defence Minister Brendan Nelson. On a lightning tour of Baghdad he said that the anecdotal evidence from Australian forces stationed in the capital was that the security situation had improved despite the surge in violence following the bombing of the Golden Mosque at Samarra last month. The bombing of the Shia mosque has been interpreted as an attempt by the largely Sunni insurgents to trigger civil war.
Ancedotal evidence? From within the green zone in Bagdhad? What's this? A desperate attempt to prop up the Alliance? Yet another example of Coalition dreaming?
Isn't the reality, as distinct from wishful hoping, that not only has the United States failed to bring a functional democracy to Iraq, but that neither US forces nor the US-backed Iraqi government in Baghdad have been able to provide the Iraqi people with basic security? The prospects of a stable, unified country sure look bleak. Even if civil war is averted in the short term, and a government is formed, that government will not be a genuine national-unity administration. It would be an arena of conflict between the contending ethnically based power groups.
Now let me offer something different: things are going according to plan for imperial divide and rule.That's the good news from Iraq.
Stephen Zines, in an article entitled The U.S. Role in Iraq’s Sectarian Violence in Foreign Policy Focus,says that:
One of the longstanding goals of such neo-conservative intellectuals has been to see the Middle East broken up into smaller ethnic or sectarian mini-states, which would include not only large stateless nationalities like the Kurds, but Maronite Christians, Druze, Arab Shi'ites and others. Such a policy comes not out of respect for the right of self-determination ----indeed, the neo-cons have been steadfast opponents of the Palestinians' desire for statehood, even alongside a secure Israel ---but out of an imperial quest for divide-and-rule. The division of the Middle East has long been seen as a means of countering the threat of pan-Arab nationalism and, more recently, pan-Islamist movements.
Tis the old imperial strategy of divide-and-rule. Chaos in Iraq, that is, civil war, serves the US's long-term strategic interests. A weak central government, starved for funds, and having trouble enforcing security, will see the slide toward confederal regionalism.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 3:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
SA Election: lost opportunities
The SA state election coincides with the Adelaide Festival of Arts so few citizens are paying much attention to the endless claims, promises and rebuttals being made. What is noted as everybody is having fun and preparing for Womald that is the presidential style and the glossy television advertising stating that Rann gets results, he has delivered for SA, so let him get on with the job.
The election is boring because the result is a foregone conclusion. The Liberals are in a mess and there is no need for a dirt unit in the Premier's Office. The Liberals are riven by faction, they will lose seats, and end up little money to rebuild a divided party. So Rann effectively becomes the CEO of SA Inc.
Graham Young in his commentary on the SA state election says that only one thing at issue in this campaign - the size of Rann’s margin - that’s the thing to campaign on. He says:
So, the only thing really at issue in this election would appear to be the size of Rann’s winning margin, or put from the other direction, how badly the Liberal Party will be mauled. If Rann runs a positive campaign, keeps himself in front of the cameras, and makes modest and achievable promises, it will be huge. If he goes negative on the Liberals, or voters start to think about just how large the margin will be, then he will be cut back down to size, but should still win handsomely. For me, the real interest from a campaign perspective will be whether the Liberals grasp this and shift their campaign appeal from personalities and policies, to an appeal for a tactical vote.
I concur. The opportunity is there as Rann is on the public record as abolishing the Legislative Council to ensure executive dominance. The strategy is to ensure that Rann does not control the Legislative Council, given the ALP's control of the lower house and to boost the committee system of the Council. You won't hear the Liberals arguing for that, though.
Rann hasn't delivered on health. He has had few results on making SA more ecologically sustainable. Getting on with the job means ever more law and order to reduce crime not social reform. The Rann Government is run by the Right in the ALP, and it has moved a long a way from its reforrmist Dunstan heritage of the 1970s---it effectively repudiates it. They are more or less business managers and public administrators concerned to keep the economy ticking over and a lid on the social discontent. Jobs and cops are what is offered the aspiring but embattled working class caught up in the politics of (downward) envy.
The model is that of Bob Carr, the ex-Premier in NSW:--play the newspaper headlines and the media politics hard and let the infrastructure run down. The professionalism of polling, spin-doctoring and temporary political tactics covers up the hollowing out of the social democrat project of redistributing resources and attacking inequality. There is very little policy about the power of education in the new knowledge economy; or ensurign that he inequality of the old industrial (manufacturring) economy is not transferred to the new social diviide between information rich and information poor.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 6:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 8, 2006
remembering another time
Gee---troubling is brewing in the federal ALP. It has the smell of blood flowing and the media circling to feast on the wounded bodies. Politics sure is a tough business.
An angry Simon Crean is openly gunning for Senator Stephen Conroy for his role in trying to throw Crean out the ALP. It is Latham revisited, isn't it. Remember Mark Latham?
Do you remember the things he was saying about certain members in his party? Well I've been reading it. In an entry in Latham Diaries on 15 November, 2004 Latham says:
Parliament comes back tomorrow, the moment we have been dreading. Caucus has gone feral with the destablisation of my leadership. It will be worse this week as the troublemakers gather in one place, gossiping to each other and to the press galllery. The chief troublemaker is Conroy: nonstop leaking, stirring discontent, befriending the malcontents. The moment he left my office last month, after our so-called reconciliation, his promise of teamwork went out the window. (p.373)
In an earlier entry, whilst commenting on working to form his shadow Cabinet, he says of Senator Conroy, that as a machine man he's not interested in policy only factions and patronage.
He then adds that Conroy:
...told me that he's against me on the Tasmanian forests because of his affiliation with the TWU--their members carry the logs. Nothing to do with argument, reason or public policy, but rather his factional links to a union. Has he ever driven a truck? Is it just me, or is there something fundamentally wrong with our Party?
Something is indeed wrong.Labor's rank-and-file membership, as it now stands, is totally dominated by factional warriors. As Latham well knew this political party is rotten to the core.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 3:33 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 7, 2006
lefty anti-semitism
Anti-semitism has changed its spots, hasn't it. So many on the Right and Left point out. They highlight how is has shifted from being a primarily a central characteristic of the traditional Right to becoming a notable feature of the left.
How come? Why the shift? Why the new anti-semitism? Why has the left gone this way? It is a bit of a puzzle because the left has traditionally been opposed to racism.
Some conservatives offer an account of why. They argue that since 9/11 many conservatives see the left to be in the grip of a closet anti-semitism.
One account of why left's anti-semitism is a closet one, is that this new anti-semitism (racism) is expressed indirectly through a criticism of Israel; or in opposition to Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state; or in opposition to American foreign policy in the Middle East.
The argument is not just that there are particular individuals who harbour repressed anti-semitic views, but that it is the political culture of the left which predisposes it to anti-semitism.
Culture, say the conservatives, is why the Left demonize Israel, is opposed to Zionism and to the existence of the state of Israel as a Jewish homeland. This cultural account is supported by critical voices on the Left, such as Engage based in the UK.
In this article it is argued by Shalom Lappin that:
... it is important to recognise that [Ken] Livingstone’s [Mayor of London] views are in no sense marginal or eccentric within British public discussion of the Middle East. A growing body of opinion, particularly on the left and in the liberal centre, is coming to see Palestinian suicide bombing as a legitimate means of resistance to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory. The issue is a topic for debate on radio and television discussion programs in a way that would be inconceivable if the terrorist actions in question were those of Irish Republicans seeking an end to British control of Northern Ireland.
How good is this cultural argument? Can the frequent and persistent criticism of the actions of the Israeli state be see as an anti-semitism that is a part of the culture of the Left?
It's a flawed account to the extent that the democratic left in the 1950s and 1960s supported Israel's creation: their narrative was one of a persecuted people creating a successful, independent and democratic nation-state ; one that was based on Zionism. There was support for Israel and its right to exist as an independent nation-state.
So what accounts for the shift in the democratic left's previous support of Israel to their current criticisms of the policies of the Israeli state? I would argue that it is the Israeli paradigm of rule or governance in the Occupied Territories. This is described here as:
bringing the Palestinians to the point of political chaos and then luring them into a deal that would "give them only the minimum necessary", while ensuring continued Israeli military and economic control over the West Bank.
The Palestinians would gradually be worn down from the violence, corruption and lack of development and so they woudl be forced to accept a long-term Israeli presence in their country. Palestinian redemption lies through conciliation with Israel (on Israel's terms) rather than through confrontation. Hamas' landslide electoral victory in January has shown the flaw of that strategy.
So the democratic left has shifted to supporting the Palestinians because they are, and have been, oppressed and persecuted by an expansionist Jewish state. Consequently, the charges of anti-semitism (racism) against the democratic left don't hold to the extent that legitimate criticisms can be made of Israeli actions in the occupied territories. It is not being said that these actions are caused by the characteristics of the Jewish people, characeristic that are not shared by other peoples.
So then we have this kind of account.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 1:38 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Nuclear Bush
The contradictions and double standards are greater than this, aren't they.
It's okay for India to have the nuclear bomb but not Iran. Bush has gone against the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) proscription against aiding another nation's nuclear-weapons program. So it is okay for the US to drive a hummer through the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) but not for Iran to sidestep it.
President Bush's deal with India endorses and assists India's nuclear-weapons program. US-supplied uranium fue. It would free up India's limited uranium reserves for fuel that otherwise would be burned in these reactors to make nuclear weapons, thereby allow India to increase its production from the estimated six to 10 additional nuclear bombs per year to several dozen a year. Bush has even given into demands from the Indian nuclear lobby to exempt large portions of the country's nuclear infrastructure from international inspection-- it appears that at least one-third of current and planned Indian reactors would be exempt from International Atomic Energy Agency inspections.
India is rewarded whilst Iran is punished. John Bolton, the US Ambassador to the UN, is quickening the drumbeat of hostility. He is advocating the need for a "chapter 7 resolution" under which the UN would authorise military action, such as air strikes, against Iran. Global security for the US neocons is just about furthering US power in the world. The US neo-conservatives are seeking to construct an anti-China alliance by arming India with nuclear weapons.
It is yet another example of the huge gap between the lofty rhetoric of the Bush administration about its "war on terror" and the practical realities in the way that it treats many Muslims around the world.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 10:37 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
March 6, 2006
religious politics in SA
The mesaage of the campaign posters of Family First in the SA election is protect the home. The home needs defending and protecting through the instrument of politics. Protecting the home from whom is unclear. Could it be crime? Terrorists? Drugs? Sexuality? Consumerism? Gays? Inner city elites?
Does it matter for conservative evangelical Christians? They are sure of God's direction for the state election. Isn't it is to upheld the family unit of society based on biblical standards. Presumably, a Labor government with the Greens holding the balance of power in the legislative Council would decriminalise drug use, legalise same-sex marriages, provide sex changes on Medicare, and remove the Lord's Prayer from Parliament.
An indication of the threat is given by one Pastor Danny Nalliah from the Catch the Fire Ministries, turned up at the Morphett Vale Baptist Church in Adelaide's southern Bible belt last weekend with a “Prophetic Message for South Australia. The threat was from those who would pass laws which will take away their Judeo-Christian heritage and take South Australia backwards from what Christians had gained. So vote Liberal Party in the state election.
Here's a part of Pastor Danny Nalliah's sermon courtesy of last Friday's Crikey Daily:
"People of South Australia if you would cry unto Me in the time which is remaining from city to city, street to street across this land, I will change the wind which is blowing in this State and I will cause a fresh wind to blow through the State for I say unto you; for if My people will not pray and seek My face for this election which you are about to face South Australia, the rulers who are ruling you even right now if they be re-elected to rule you for another season in the next three to four years ahead of you, you shall lose 20 years of what you have gained and this generation which is in this place shall not see My glory fall upon this State.
For if you would cry unto Me day and night and get my servants across this State, not everyone, but whoever could, to get on their knees and repent on behalf of the sin which is in the church and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and I will forgive your sin and I will heal the land and in that healing I shall bring new rulers to lead this State and yet you might think there is such a short time and it is the impossible which will be made possible because of your prayers says the Lord.
... Now this is what I say: What the Lord is clearly stating right now is that if the current Labor Government continues to lead this State for another season and they win this election and lead this State for another season, you as a State will lose approximately 20 years of what you have gained. There will be laws which will be passed which will take away your Judeo-Christian heritage and you will fight for it to come back but it will be removed and it will be a long fight and this generation will not see the glory of God, however, if you would go into prayer and fasting and cause the State to get on its knees and cry unto the Lord, the Lord will then cause the Liberal Party to come in."
Last year Pastor Nalliah was judged to heve engaged in religious vilification of Muslims under Victoria's under the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001.That experience lead to the Pastor joining Family First.
The Pastor reckons that those who will roll back the Judiac-Christian heritage are Muslims because the real nature of Islam is to dominate other religions and other cultures. The Koran speaks of world domination. The Pastor says that:
Like a pressure cooker or bottle of soda water waiting to explode, the simmering racial war will reach its inevitable climax later, if not sooner. Strong police tactics have contained the situation for now; however, the bitterness and anger is pent up, ominously stored, waiting to flare up again.That's why we need a long-term solution.
The long terrm solution? Calling Australia home. Australia is the one Australia founded on the Judaic-Christian heritage. That is Peter Costello's position. The Pastor goes further when he links the Bible to a free and democratic society.
We have just sacrificed freedom of speech and democracy for Islamic Sharia law by stealth in the State Parliament in the State of Victoria. We have a choice, nation of Australia. We either can follow the Koran and follow Islamic Sharia law and be slaves in this nation, or follow the Bible and be a free and democratic society.
It's very black and white---but that's Christian fundamentalism, isn't it? It too desires a theocracy, but that desire remains repressed in a liberal society. What we can say is that Christian fundamentalism, despite its stand on free speech contra the political correctness of Victoria's racial vilification laws, is in opposition to liberalism.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 1:48 PM | Comments (19) | TrackBack
SA Election: the media
When I was in Sydney on the Weekend I noticed all the Comonwealth Games billboards of global capital. There are none in Adelaide. All we have is the state election posters in a onesided election that the polls say the ALP will comfortably win. Most of the election advertising is on television and it is all by the right wing-Rann ALP Government. It's all about vision, economic outcomes, and being extra tough law and order.
You can read these as saying that the SA is enjoying a long period of sustained economic growth that gives rise to ever more law and problems. How come? Isn't that an indication that all is not well? Few journalists or commentators on The Advertser think that way
The ALP advertising is pretty much what the Rann Government has been doing for the last three years. This is a government that is strong on media manipulation, drip feed, and media events with the Advertiser happily playing the game.
The Liberals are absent. They have no money or vision. Theirs is a defensive campaign to limit the damage to losing seats. So they offer a bunch of carrots to selected interest groups in local campaigns and bash the public servants by saying they will cut 5000 jobs. That gets the media attention they desparately need, as they lack economic vision and growth strategies. What is being offered is the standard neo-liberal privatisation and cost cutting. How does that address an aging dwindling population, decaying infrastructure, sustainability and the best and brightest of the young leaving the state?
The only suprise so far is The Advertiser's coming out against the Rann Government, even though ithe Murdoch tabloid supports Rann's policies to grow the fragile economy and being tough on law and order. That opposition is a momentary blip for three weeks. Then The Advertiser will go back its usual contentment state on the Rann drip feed and keep its frustrations to itself.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 8:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 5, 2006
a political joke
Premier Peter Beattie in Quensland announced last Thursday that Queensland's health system had "turned the corner". It's a joke isn't it.
How can such a dysfunctionalsystem be turned around so quickly with a promise of cash and more doctors from full feeing paying courses? Secondly, have not voters lost confidence in the Beattie's Government ability to "fix" Queensland Health? The glossy Team Beattie, who basically see themselves as administrators and managers, have moved into election mode.
Are we not also losing patience with Tony --'-my job is to fix the problems'--- Abbott, and his resistance to health care reform, and his unwilllingness to make the shift from linking government spending decisions to looking after doctors to spending money to look after patients?
We have problems: allocative inefficiency, poor use of information technology, lack of competition, cost shifting and buck passing, narrow models of health care, medical dominance, too much focus on chronic disease in hospitals etc. We have an ageing population and a disintegrating public health system. Where's the fixer? Is it not a myth--that a health minister can "fix" the problems in the health care system? How can we fix a situation where 2 out very 3 Australians court diabetes and heart disease by being overweight?
Even the Australian Financial Review is argues that the problem solving approach of the fixers is wrong:
Health care ashould be as much about encouraging people to adopt healther lifestyles as about treatign their ailments. The present model where---where doctors and hospitals keeping meeting demand instead of trying to stem it at its source---doesn't address this need.
Of course the centraliists, such as Andrew Podger, the former Canberra health bureaucrat, want to eliminate the states with commonwealth providing services direct to regional health care purchasers. How are you gonig to address overweight and obesity in the Australian population without the help of the states in a federal system? It's bureaucrat dreaming.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 5:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 3, 2006
observing Canberra
As John Howard celebrates ten years of political success with his courtiers the ALP reflects on the effects of ten years in opposition:
Bill Leak
Some within federal Labor also ponder on the future prospects of their great party:
Geoff Pryor
The question being asked is: is Labor going anywhere?
A comment by Paul Kelly in The Australian reflecting on John Howard's achievements:
Howard has been lucky to govern during an era of historic weakness in the Australian Left. Yet he has a keen grasp of this weakness and exploits its two main flaws - namely, that the Left's social and economic solutions no longer work and that its hijack by middle-class progressives has alienated the Left from a majority of the Australian community.
It rolls off so easily doesn't it: the ALP is captured by the inner city social liberal professional class--the New Class with its ideology of social control. What ever happened to all that history of the neo-liberal micro-economic reforms under Hawke and Keating?
The reality is that the ALP is currrently run by the machine men of the authoritarian National Right who don't care much about social justice, equality, democracy or living an ethical life rightly. Compassion is a campaign slogan not a way of life for them. It's the ever expanding control by the Right faction that all the current body punches in the Victorian pre-selection are about.
Presumably, the divisions in the federal Labor Party will continue to widen.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 12:23 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 2, 2006
Malcolm Turnbull on water: a disappointment
Even though Malcolm Turnball walks on the dark side of politics I have a soft spot for him because of his consistent advocacy of water reform, when reform to ensure sustainablity is being blocked in both urban and rural Australia. Turnbull has argued for the need for efficient markets in water, greater accountability of water use, innovation in water technology and private sector investment in the water sector.
Now Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister with responsibility for water policy, Turnbull continues to advocate water trading in relation to the National Water Initiative. So what is the case he makes in yesterdays Australian Financial Review?
Water markets enable value to be set by free choice of people in the market, not by government decree. Markets are better at picking winners than governments. As long as recurrent charges for water access and delivery are properly priced so as to recover the costs of provision ..... the most important (but not the only) test of whether water is being used efficently is whether that user is making a profit.
Turnbull then adds:
Water markets enable us to adjust to change and to reallocate water resources over time in response to changes in market requirements and environmental conditions.They also let us deploy resources efficiently.
He then argues that though there is water trading in Australia, it is severely constrained. Consequently, some of the barriers to trade need to be removed so the water market can create its own momentum.
What do we make of this argument?
Well, it is fine as it goes. We do need water trading and water markets. But note that Turnbull's concern is with efficiency in the allocation of the use of water resources and making a profit. This is a very one sided understanding of the governance of water, and a distortion of the goals of the National Water Initiative. The latter states:
The National Water Initiative (NWI) is a comprehensive strategy driven by the Australian Government to improve water management across the country. Australia’s highly variable and often scarce water resources are crucial for our economic, social and environmental wellbeing. We need to continue to improve the productivity and efficiency of our water use, while maintaining healthy river and groundwater systems.
Turnbull nowhere mentions the strategic goal of 'maintaining healthy river and groundwater systems.' That is why he disappoints. He reduces the key part of the National Water Initiative to 'promoting the efficient operation of water markets. ' Markets by themselves will not deliver more environmental flows. That requires government intervention. To date co-operative federalism has not delivered environmental flows to the Murray-Darling river sytsem.
You would expect the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister with responsibility for water policy to both understand that the twin strategic aims of the National Water Initiative, to defend them from those who say no no no to the ecologically sustainable use of water, and to address the failure to deliver environmental flows. Malcolm Turnbull is walking on the dark side with a slight green wash.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 12:06 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Iraq: story doesn't add up
I dunno about Iraq. I'm uneasy about the way it is being reported. It doesn't quite add up.
It's reported in the media as sectarian violence in which Shi'ites and Sunni's tearing one another apart. I know that is going on, but why would they destroy themselves? I know that al Qaeda is playing a violent hand, but all the violence cannot be the work of al Qaeda.
The 'Iraq's tearing themselves' story doesn't quite dd up. Nor does the argument that American, British or Australian troops are there to keep the peace, and that the occupation forces are the only bulwark against civil war. The invade-and-stabilize paradigm (in Iraq and Afghanistan) replaces brutal dictatorships with failed states.
So what's going on in Iraq?
To keep my bearings I stay with an 'insurgency/resistancescenario that aims to end the US occupation' narrative in which the Americans will leave. This helps me make sense of the chaos, even though I know that it doesn't make sense of the sectarian violence. I don't know where to go to my find my unease addressed. Some over at Larvatus Prodeo appear to accept the chaos as historically inevitable. Juan Cole runs a civil war scenario in an account that highlights President Bush's declining popularity. He says:
Tactically, strategically and politically Bush now finds himself in the worst of all possible worlds. With Americans increasingly fed up with the Iraq debacle, he needs to start drawing down troops soon, but he can't do it while the country teeters on the brink of civil war. If civil war does break out, a U.S. withdrawal will look even more like cutting and running -- under these circumstances, not even Karl Rove will be able to figure out a way to get away with simply declaring victory and going home. Yet if American troops stay, they have no good options either. . ."
That's all true. Bush's recent rhetoric about things going well towards the formation of a unified Iraq is pie in the sky. Its all about President Bush protecting Americans from Osama bin Laden tailored for the US audience.
Still, I have my doubts around Cole's civil war sceario. I suspect that some group is trying to lay down the conditions for civil war by blowing up the Golden Dome, which then sets Shi'ite and Sunni against one another in terms of a vicious cycle of violence. Who is creating the conditions so that the country tetters on civil war? Why would Sunnis blow up the Golden Dome---a Shi'ite mosque? They would know the consequences of that--horrible revenge reprisals for the Sunni's. Why would you chose to do that to your own people?
The Washington Post says that attacks on Shiite and Sunni holy sites had been rare in Iraq until last Wednesday, when bombers blew the gold-plated top off the shrine in Samarra, a Sunni city about 65 miles north of Baghdad. That attack unleashed sectarian warfare in Iraq. Who blew up the shrine in Samarra? Why would the Shi'ites do that? They are already in a powerful position. How would the chaos of sectarian violence benefit them? It cannot be them.
See why I have doubts and puzzlements? And I haven't even mentioned the death squads.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 12:28 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
March 1, 2006
current account deficit worsens
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has said that the current account deficit widened six per cent to $14.5 billion in the December quarter, the third highest on record . The current account deficit has measured over 6 per cent of GDP for five consecutive quarters, the longest run on record. That is in spite of a booming mining exports (in iron ore and coal) and the terms of trade running in Australia's favor.
Nobody in the Howard Government seems worried. It is assumed that the earnings from booming commodity exports, along with improving rural production would drive down the current deficit. Quarry Australia is doing okay. All we have to do is sit and wait for the market to work its magic and the current account deficit will come down.
I reckon that the current account deficit will remain large for most of this year. Isn't it a good issue to raise? So where is the ALP on all of this?
Why aren't they raising concerns about the steady rise in global interest rates increasing the repayments on the debt? Or the failure of the export sector to contribute to economic growth? How come this is not a central plank in their critique of the Governemnt's economic management?
Are they raising the issues but they don't cut through the media filters? Or has Wayne Swan, the Opposition's Treasury spokesperson, given up?
He's raising the issues. But it is just a doorstop. There is a media release Shouldn't Swan be all over the airwaves on this? Stephen Smith is raising the issue of the decline in manufacturing, but it is not cutting through.
So what are they doing about that? Or is the strategy to concentrate the attack on the Howard Government inside Parliament in Question Time? That is what it looks like to me.
Update: 3 March
Some interesting figures.
Australia has a trade deficit with China--- now $4 billion for the first seven months of the financial year. For the same period of last financial year it was $5.3 billion.The deficit with the United States (currently $7.7 billion), Thailand (currently $800 million) and Singapore (currently $3.1 billion) have all blown-out this year.The exception to this is the trade surplus with Japan has increased and now stands just short of $8 billion for the first seven months of the year. That was the total size of the surplus in 2004/05.
All in all Australia's trade deficit with the rest of the world blew out by 135 per cent to $2.69 billion in January with exports slumping seven per cent during the month to $15.2 billion. January's record trade deficit should be worrying the government, Treasury and the Reserve Bank – but all the signs are that this indicator of an uncompetitive economy is being treated by all these powers with indifference.
Isn't Treasury running out of excuses on the trade deficit. Export volumes have been predicted to rise for years now – eg by Treasury in successive budget estimates--- but there has in fact been little overall increase. In some sectors such as manufacturing, exports have fallen. Isn't the situationmasked by the substantial rises in the prices of mineral exports. So what happens when resource prices stop rising and begin to fall?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 6:35 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
goings on in federal parliament
Whilst the former chairrman of AWB, Trevor Flugge is telling the Cole Inquiry that he couldn't remember anything at all except that he couldn't remember, I've been watching Question Time in Parliament these last couple of days.
The Government's line that there'd been "no suspicion, no suggestion, no alarm bells" about AWB shonkiness prior to the Volker Report in 2004 looked decidedly shaky with newly declassified diplomatic cables showing that the Government ministers were informed back of the kickbacks around 2000- to April 2001.
The new defence of Ministers Downer and Vaile is that, yes they were aware of the kickbacks before the Volker Report, (rather than only becoming aware of them in April of 2004); but hey, they didn't believe the warnings. That is why they never took seriously the growing pile of evidence (around 24 warnings) that AWB was funding the regime of Saddam Hussein, right up to the outbreak of war in March 2003.
Geoff Pryor
Alas for the ALP, its point of attack is being weakened by its factional brawls. The Government front bench (especially Costello and Abbott) is making hay with them. The Government's continual reference to sleazy deals, bad blood and poisonous atmosphere inside the federal parliamentary ALP makes the ALP the issue. It has placed them on the backfoot.
You can see why trust in the Government continues to decline as the notion of truth is debased by the workings of power. Insulting the ALP and paying the man instead of the issue doesn't address the legitimate questions that are being raised.
What next? The reappearance of the government dirt unit?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 1:43 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack