The Myth of Prosperity

Almost a month ago, I wrote briefly of the need for the environmental movement to be united with workers' movements, particularly in the current context of possible economic downturn. Lo and behold, like Piers Akerman at a table of hors d'oeuvres, I have a fanatic repeatedly popping up at my blog. This fanatic is thrashing about like a fish out of water, gasping for air, and claiming to have 'pwned' me.
The said fanatic claims that the past few years, namely, the Howard years, could not possibly be viewed as anything but prosperous. This narrative is pretty common, particularly in the News Ltd cheersquad. So we see a series of fairly blunt statements in the comments thread, as follows:

[L]iving standards in Australia will continue to rise. If they fall, it will be due to a Greens-model carbon trading scheme.

Inflation isn't that high, particularly when compares to rising wages. As I pointed out on my blog recently, Australians tend to be a bunch of whiners when it comes to prices.

Like most lefties, your economic illiteracy speaks volumes. Go read about 'real growth' over at Wikipedia.


Whiners, eh?

Any discussion of wage rises and 'real growth' ought really to make mention of a well-established fact, namely, that Australians work a very high number of hours compared to other countries; the 40-hour working week is 'dead'. Furthermore, Australia's labour force has become casualised (a whopping 1 in 3 workers are employed as casuals), meaning that more Australian households suffer from uncertainty in terms of future income, as well as no sick or recreational leave, and difficulties in securing credit.

With this in mind, there are two areas I'd like to touch on where the prosperity narrative has been clearly undermined, to all but the most ardent of true believers.

Firstly, as a result of a number of factors, we have seen the emergence of widespread 'mortgage stress'. This latter notion is determined by the number of households for whom 30-35% of income is spent on mortgage repayments.

In 2001, the term mortgage stress applied to about 1 in 10 Australians. According to the ABS, in 2007, this figure was 47% for Australians below the median wage of about $53,000. Or take this (June 2008) article, for instance:

‘The number of households struggling to meet mortgage repayments jumped 15% to 784,000 in May and is likely to reach 923,000 by September, Martin North, head of Fujitsu Consulting, predicted.’


This is in the context of broader economic difficulties for Australians:

‘…The new figures were released as the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed that household wealth fell by 15%, or $7500 per person, in the three months to March and the debt-to-asset ratio surged to a record 138%.

"The ratio shows that households do not have sufficient readily liquid assets to cover outstanding debt, highlighting a degree of vulnerability to an economic downturn," said Craig James, CommSec's chief equities economist.’

As one can see, 'prosperity' has been selective in terms of who has received its blessings. Despite Australia's much-vaunted growth during the Howard years, and despite rising wages, many Australians, particularly the most vulnerable, are clearly and significantly disadvantage by the cost of housing.

In addition to increased mortgage stress during the allegedly prosperous years, poverty has also increased. Between 1994 and 2004, the number of Australians living in poverty rose from 7.6% to 9.9% of the population. If a lower threshold is used to define 'poverty' (i.e. if it is defined as living on 60% of the median income), then poverty levels increased from 15.9% in 1994 to 20.4% in 2004, a clear indicator of growing inequality in both relative terms. In absolute terms, Australia's most poverty stricken and vulnerable have been demonised by the Howard government, and their financial lot has not improved.

Despite calls by Rudd for 'wage restraint', and the hand-wringing of the business community, the modest rise in wages for Australia's lowest-paid workers are insufficient to lift anybody out of poverty, particularly given that recent wage increases were below the rate of inflation (i.e. constituted a wage decrease in 'real' terms). This article also contains many useful references on this topic.

In sum, let the fanatics bray with fawning imbecility for 'fiscal conservatism' and Howard. Mortgage stress and rising poverty undermine their thesis, and this is before we have examined inflation, and the soaring cost of fuel and food. Whiners, indeed.

Reading the Entrails (After the Bloodbath)

As opinion polling has predicted for the past 12 months, Howard's Liberal Government have been comprehensively repudiated by the Australian public.

The Liberals and their acolytes will need some time to pass before they can examine this result honestly. We can expect that, in the near future, only a few will have the intellectual cleanliness to admit that this election result was not merely a result of a bored electorate wanting a change. It was not simply a consequence of people thinking John Howard 'too old', and preferring a younger candidate.

Rather, Howard was lucky to have won 4 elections. Lucky in 1998 that he held onto marginal seats, after losing the popular vote. Lucky in 2001 that certain events (9/11 and Tampa) allowed the Libs to grimly hold on. And lucky in 2004 that Labor's Latham was perceived as unelectable.

Without world events or Labor implosions to assist, the Liberals never looked like the 'master politicians' that the News Ltd media think them.

Secondly, of all the reasons people have for voting against the Liberals (health, education, climate change), industrial relations is the single-biggest issue to distinguish this election from previous years'.

Many people, both on the left-leaning blogs, and elsewhere, argued that the polls pointed to a Lib defeat as a result of the 'doctor's wives' demographic. That is, the 'small l' liberals, also known as 'the Wets', would abandon Howard in the 2007 election as a result of the Liberal Party's social conservatism. It is well-known that the party is in thrall to far-right nutters and factional warlords in the NSW right branch. This, it was presumed, was driving the swing.

This hypothesis, in retrospect, was never entirely convincing. For instance, it did not account for why it was precisely in 2007 that the Wets would reject Howard, having presumably voted for him previously, when what we may politely term his 'social conservatism' was amply on display. It also failed to account for why, in this political climate, economically conservative and socially progressive parties (such as the Dems) could get no traction. As Robinson noted on the ABC site, 'liberalism' has been dead in the Liberal Party for some time now.

In contrast to this, I suggested a few weeks ago that there was a class-based analysis to which we could subject the polls. Namely, through his IR laws, Howard had declared economic and industrial war on Australia's poorest, many of whom would have been his erstwhile supporters. This suggestion did not find favour among some who encountered it at Larvatus Prodeo.

I suggested that if the Wets were driving the swing, then 'we should see big swings in seats such as Wentworth, Kooyong, Higgins, and Goldstein, among others'. If the class hypothesis were correct, then I predicted we might see major swings in places such as Corangamite, or McEwen.

Naturally, we cannot rule out the possibility of both options being at least partially correct. Nonetheless, I think the Workchoices/working class rebellion hypothesis goes the farthest in explaining the election result.

The results are not entirely counted at this time, but let us look at some of the figures thus far. The Wets' heartland in Wentworth appears to have recorded a 1.1% swing to the Liberals so far. North Sydney recorded a 4.8% swing to the ALP, in keeping with a trend that began at the 2004 election, and Goldstein experiences something similar (4.5%). Kooyong recorded a very minor ALP swing (0.7%), as did Higgins (1.9%).

How did the 'battlers' fare? Corangamite fell to the ALP (6.8% swing), and McEwen is poised to fall (6.6%). LaTrobe has recorded a similar swing (6.1%), with Holt voters changing their tune in a big way (11.1%).

Looking at individual polling booth results also yields some interesting analysis. For instance, in Kooyong, many of the wealthiest neighbourhoods (Hawthorn, Kew, Surrey Hills) actually recorded minor swings (1-3%) to the Liberals. In McEwen, for instance, outer suburban booths in 'mortgage belt' areas (Diamond Creek, Mill Park Lakes, Mernda) all recorded sizeable swings (6-10%).

Once final results are in, further analysis will be possible, but at this point, I think it is fair to conclude that Australia's working class has rejected the Liberals' cynical IR policies in a stunning fashion. We may also be approaching the time when we view 'liberalism' as increasingly irrelevant to Australian politics.

Any thoughts from readers on the electorates they know would be greatly appreciated.

Idealism Versus Materialism (sort of)

Life doesn't really allow us the opportunity of performing controlled experiments in the area of philosophy. The 2007 Australian Federal Election will, however, give us the opportunity to test a hypothesis or two.

I think by now it's reasonable to assume that there will be an overall swing toward the Labor Party. Whether this swing will be enough to see them elected is another question, but several months of polls have consistently put Labor's popularity in the stratosphere, compared to the incumbents. A Liberal staffer has supposedly admitted that his comrades are 'shitting themselves'.

In some states, particularly Queensland and Western Australia, Labor hit pretty close to rock bottom at the last election, and were always likely to bounce a little, if only slightly.

The blogosphere and media are busily trying to analyse the whys and wherefores of the impending swing. One theory doing the rounds is the notion that so-called 'small "l" liberals', (also known disparagingly as 'doctor's wives'), in traditional, blue-ribbon Liberal seats, are turning away from Howard.

This theory suggests that the small l's can get all the 'fiscal conservatism' they like from Rudd, without having to endure Howard's ugly social policies. If this theory is correct, we should see big swings in seats such as Wentworth, Kooyong, Higgins, and Goldstein, among others. Some of these seats have never been held by Labor, and it's difficult to imagine the extent of blue-rinse suicides should such a theory eventuate in practice.

The other theory that has also done the rounds, and to which I'm somewhat partial, is what I'll term loosely the 'materialist' theory.

Howard has reignited class warfare with his attacks on unions, and especially, with his gutting of workers' rights via Workchoices.

Sure, unions are in decline. They still have about 1.7 million members, which is substantially more than the combined membership of all political parties.
And sure, our friends at News Ltd tell us that 'class no longer exists', and is merely a rhetorical fiction, intended to keep aging Trots in print. Those doing overtime on AWA's might beg to differ when examining their payslip.

If this theory is correct, we might see the biggest swings not in blue-ribbon seats, but rather, blue-collar seats. AWA's, interest rate rises and the Liberals' hollow claims about economic prosperity don't play so well among the so-called Howard's battlers. If I am correct in believing that these people will respond to the economic and industrial warfare being waged against them, we should see major swings in seats such as Corangamite, Paramatta, and even McEwen. I take my examples from Vic and NSW as I know these two states better than the others, but some people may have other suggestions.

Of course, it could also happen that both groups of voters swing towards Labor. At this point, I'm not so sure that this will occur. Despite some recent fluctuations in polling data, I'd guess the 'real' 2-Party Preferred vote is something like 55%-56% for Labor at the moment. The fluctuations have generally been well within the margin of error. If both groups are swinging, we might see an election of Canadian proportions.

We shall see which explanation is the more likely after several more long weeks.

UPDATE:

This was an election-related post from 23/10. I gave some of the ideas contained therein a run on Larvatus the other day, and some people were mortified at the idea that supposed Liberal Wets were not going to single-handedly give Labor a victory.

Hang the Intellectuals

The weekend rag had an opinion piece by Chris Middendorp, asking why the works of Australia's greatest novelist, Patrick White, were more or less ignored by mainstream Australia. Middendorp attributes this phenomenon to 'cultural cringe'.

Clearly, Australians have much to cringe about, but most of our cringeworthy objects these days are not cultural, but political. We might ask some other questions about why a writer such as White is ignored, and ignored precisely by our good nationalists in the media.

To be sure, White is a 'difficult' writer, but no more so than any number of other modernists. We should find it striking that this era of cultural whitewashing, where Australia's racism is routinely re-branded as patriotism (or, in the cases of racism directed at Aborigines, as a 'goodwill' intervention), is precisely the era where Australians of international significance among the intelligentsia are either ignored (Patrick White), maligned (Germaine Greer) or co-opted (I'll refrain from citing examples for this last category).

It is no coincidence, of course, that during the past 10 years of Howard's rule, and subsequent cultural warfare, intellectuals have been a source of considerable angst to conservatives. It is also no coincidence that Patrick White, an avowed Whitlamite, homosexual, and Republican, is one such intellectual. As a Nobel Laureate, he is too well-regarded to be susceptible to an Andrew Bolt or Christopher Pearson smear-piece (though White's biographer is not so fortunate). Nonetheless, White is simply sidestepped, while the NewsCorp hacks and Liberal politicians (such as George Brandis, last week) aim at smaller targets.

It should be clear by now that, after years of 'intellectual' or 'elite' being used as terms of abuse, that conservative politicians, and a pliant media, have attempted, as much as possible, to push an anti-intellectual, anti-cultural agenda, except where the latter targets are sufficiently fairy floss-like to be considered no threat to the 'evil, Howard-hating elites' narrative.

In this vein, News Ltd. Political Hack-in-Chief Paul Kelly appeared on last Friday's Lateline, in an attempt to debate LaTrobe University historian Robert Manne. The debate topic revolved around the culture wars, and a recent essay by Kelly purporting to demonstrate that Australia has cultivated a clique of 'public intellectuals' concerned solely with Howard-hating polemic, who ignore the Liberal Governments policy 'success'.

Never mind that this 'success' is far from agreed-upon. Sure, the economy has not collapsed, and has been very generous (for some Australians only - but this topic can wait for another post). On every other front, however, there has been policy failure.

Good quality, affordable healthcare and education has become more difficult to obtain. Workers' long-held rights have been abolished. The sentiments of race-rioters are more or less echoed, repeatedly, by our Governing politicians.

Robert Manne, a long-time conservative who remains conservative (though not slavishly in awe of the Howard Government) made these points to Kelly, and noted that he, Raymond Gaita, David Marr, and Julian Burnside are all 'elites' who are systematically demonised by the News Ltd crew. Manne took Kelly to task successfully:

I don't dispute there is a large group of us who think the Howard
Government has on balance done a lot of harm to Australia in the area of
culture, not the economy, but there are only three people mentioned. I want to
say just one thing about that.

The three people mentioned are very distinguished
people, not second rate in any way. Paul might disagree with them, might think
they are too moralistic about Howard and so on. One has written a superb
biography of Patrick White, David Marr. The other, Raymond Gaita, is probably
the best known philosopher of Australia except for Peter Singer, maybe. And
Julian Burnside is not a public intellectual so much as a humane and extremely
fine barrister who's had major success.

I think the category - the three people
included, if he thinks they're second rate, he should look to the cast of
journalists in Australia. I think there is a real argument and I think it's a
left-right argument, as you said. And I think it's about those intellectuals
like myself and like Ray Gaita and like David Marr and many others like Julian,
who think the Howard Government in many ways has done great damage to this
country and the question of how angry we should be or what the right moral
temper is for all of that is an important and right issue. If I could start by
something. It we look at this week, we've had, for example, a defamatory attack
on a group of academics who happen to disagree with what the Government would
like us to believe on WorkChoices. I don't know what Paul thinks about this, but
we've had an attack on the entire character of a continent - Africans. I feel
really upset about it and I don't think sort of worldly calm, as Paul seems to
think, is the right response to an attack on an entire group of people. I think
it is racism, I have to say.

And therein is revealed the intellectual bankruptcy of present-day conservatism. Preoccupied with idiotic left-right cultural flaming, they cannot assert any coherent, positive position, or even identify who 'the left' actually are. For instance, as Manne correctly noted, Kelly's targets are not rabid socialists.

For instance, Gaita is a signed-up member of the execrable Euston crowd. Burnside is concerned primarily with human rights and due legal process, and is not a polemicist. Marr is a polemicist, but of a self-described 'soft-left' variety. Whilst his criticisms of the Howard Government are frequent, and articulate, they are hardly militant.

The stupidity continued today in the Government Gazette when the far-right News Ltd hack, and board member of 'our' ABC, Imre Salusinszky, opined that the 'intellectuals have gone too far'.

Last week, the Government's 'avuncular' Minister for Serfdom, Joe Hockey, attacked an academic report that demonstrated that the Government's Workchoices legislation left workers worse off. Always more 'idiot' than 'savant', Salusinszky continued Hockey's anti-intellectual smearing by way of Murdoch's megaphone:

A quick scan, using the internet, of research centres at universities
reveals that many are structured around the "softie Left" world view that former
Media Watch host David Marr memorably nominated as the primary qualification for
entry into Australian journalism.

One can accept the above statement as true, provided one excludes the actual content of 90% of what passes for Australian 'journalism'. Only one newspaper in the country is even vaguely to the 'left', and there is no television program that could be considered particularly progressive.

Salusinszky targets that author of the industrial relations study in particular, with this obtuse broadside:

And perhaps there is no reason to be concerned that, in the era during
which the mainstream political class has come to accept the logic of the market,
an academic paid to conduct research into the Australian labour market still
describes himself as a socialist.

This statement demonstrates Salusinszky's remove from the 'mainstream', as well as his sycophantic sloganeering. Who in 'mainstream' Australia has come to accept 'the logic' of the market, other than the HR Nicholls society and a few fundamentalists? Not the many Australians who opposed the sale of Telstra, and who oppose the increasing privatisation of every aspect of society. Not the majority of Australians who despise the Government's supposed 'deregulation' of industrial relations laws. Not the farmers, who are slated to receive significant subsidies or generous retirement handouts from the Government, in order to shore up votes in rural electorates. Imre's gripe, that a labour-market researcher describes himself as 'socialist', is likewise misguided. The Australian Labor Party still describes itself as 'socialist' (with the necessary qualifiers), and remains Australia's oldest, and single-most popular party.

Salusinzsky's most comical moment, however, comes at the end of his piece, where he cites is colleague and fellow-culture warrior, Paul Kelly:

"A healthy democracy will see a healthy gulf between its politicians and
its intellectuals. But this gulf in Australia is a chasm that demands serious
attention."

That the GG could even try to publish such material, without irony, and not intended as satire, suggests that some grave intellectual deficiencies exist either among Murdoch's staff, or his readers. That, or we need to hang a few 'intellectuals'.

Repudiation

For the better part of this year, Australia's Murdoch media hacks have been struggling with the fact that poll after poll, Howard and the Liberal Party have been shown to be deeply unpopular. The hacks have not yet come to terms with this fact, and consequently, every minor fluctuation in polling stats is hailed as the Great Leader's Comeback. After all, how could an adoring electorate that had elected Howard 4 times be so ungrateful?

Some time ago, psephological blogger Possum had subjected Howard's decline to some statistical analysis, with some interesting results. Readers who enjoy a bit of number-crunching may wish to seek out the original post, but here are some of Possum's conclusions:

The media pundits and parts of blogsville have been acting all surprised that
the electorate have somehow “turned” on the government out of the blue. But as
has been demonstrated here before time and time again, it’s not out of the blue.
There has been a consistent and growing swing away from the governments favour
since the 98 election with the swings to them trending less and less positive,
before turning negative, then turning against them in larger magnitudes.
They
nearly lost in 1998 – securing less than 50% of the two party preferred
vote.
They nearly lost in 2001, with some serious porkbarreling and the
Tampa/S11 riding to their rescue, giving them a primary vote spike which was
volatility off the longer term trend running against them at the time.

Over 2001-2004, 5% of the government primary vote went AWOL and stuck mostly
with the minor parties and a bit to the ALP, but the ALP under Beazley and
particularly Crean couldn’t grab those AWOL coalition votes. Latham came along
and grabbed not only that 5% of ex-coalition voters parking with the minors, but
also 3% extra from the Coalition primary vote. Latham imploded and that 7-8%
went back to the minors and the Coalition. Not because of Howard, but because of
Latham.
Approximately 30% of swinging voters deserted Howard after the 2005
budget, taking 5% off the governments primary vote which went straight to the
Minors and undecided camp (and none of them have come back since), and another
3% thereabouts shifted between the ALP, the Minors and the Coalition on a
regular basis.
Along came Rudd and the underlying trend away from the
government crystallised into an ALP primary vote lift (rather than the minor
parties +undecideds where it had been hiding for the last 5 years to varying
strengths).

Naturally, this account of the polls since Howard's reign conflicts with the dominant narrative that we encounter in the media, namely, that Howard is basically a popular leader, who's sudden fall from grace must have something to do with his age, or haircut, or something. (This line is particularly fashionable with the pro-Costello Murdoch hacks, such as Milne, or Bolt).

I won't try to engage with Possum's statistical analyses - though I have some foggy recollections of linear regression and the like, I'm seriously under-qualified for such a task. I will try to offer a little political reasoning.

Firstly, Howard was never popular. Never. For much of his career, he's been a laughing-stock, even among his own comrades, as I've pointed out in the past.

Secondly, Howard, the Great Leader, was never statesman-like, or possessed of any great talent, other than for internal party power-mongering. Australia has not had a less 'leader-like' leader in living memory, at any level. Maximising short-term political gain by any grubby means available has been Howard's stock in trade. He is not so much the Man of Steel as the persistent, insidious tapeworm, clinging desperately to avoid the ever-imminent expulsion. Even John 'warm lettuce' Hewson was more charismatic than this weasel.

Thirdly, Howard has been made to look better by a fawning media, and bumbling, bickering opposition. When the latter began to at least gain some semblance of organisation, this was immediately reflected in poll results. And, to be fair, the likes of Beazley, Crean, and Latham all made attempts (however half-arsed) to challenge the Liberals on the policy front, though almost all of these attempts were unreported by the media.

Fourthly, Howard's authoritarian leadership style, and emphasis on 'party discipline' (that is to say, stifling of all but the most inconsequential of dissent) has almost succeeded in lending an air of coherence to his doctrines. He is able and obsequiously supported by a host of withered half-men, such as Ruddock, Downer, Abbott, and Andrews, who are all far too reviled in their own right to ever consider leadership.

In short, Howard has been lucky, and has benefited for 10 years from a confluence of factors in his favour.

In 1998, he lost the popular vote (two-party preferred), but clung onto power all the same.

In 2001, he benefited from the bigotry that still pervades large swathes of 'Middle Australia'. With Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party in terminal decline, Howard was gradually able to steal a number of bogan votes, particularly on the platforms of 'national security' and 'border protection'. Of course, Australia's borders have only been invaded once, strictly speaking, and that was long ago, and by a rather different kind of 'boat people'. All the same, the Liberals' winning margin was not so great - one can only speculate that Howard may well have lost had Tampa and 9/11 had occurred some other year.

In 2004, Latham led the opposition through a bizarre and inept campaign that saw Howard re-elected with an increased majority. What the pundits fail to realise is that this re-election occurred in spite of Howard's policies, not because of them. Almost all of the much-despised Liberal policies were already there - Hicks, Iraq, inaction on climate change, erosion of civil liberties, etc. AWB was still to come, but this scandal was always politically irrelevant. Workchoices is the main piece of legislation to push voters over the edge.

Howard himself has done more than anyone to put class on the political agenda in Australia, eagerly cultivating the myth of 'Howard's Battlers', good, hard-working white folk from 'Middle Australia' who want tough laws on gays and asylum seekers. Perhaps believing his own mythology, in a fatal fit of hubris, Howard stripped workers of their hard-earned rights, thus ensuring that class remained at issue, though not for reasons of the Liberals' choosing.

It is convenient for the pundits to reduce these matters to a US-style election, and analyse them in terms of which 'candidate' has the nicest smile, or what-not. Even the Liberals' themselves think as much, with Tony Abbott deriding voters as 'sleepwalking' through a potential Liberal defeat this year. Of course, what these patronising and insulting analyses mask is the fact that voters are not merely rejecting a leader, or a haircut, or set of teeth, but are repudiating an entire series of policies that are fundamentally hostile to most Australians, and that serve the interests of a small clique of cashed-up elites. What Nietzsche said often of the Germans could equally be said of the Australians - namely, that yes, they are a bit stupid, but, unlike the Germans, they are not that stupid, and they know when they are being shafted.

A recent poll has even suggested that it's not merely the closet Bolsheviks who oppose Australia's foreign policy, especially as regards the Australian-US alliance. And a new study tells us what we already know, that is, that AWA's offer plenty of 'choice' and lots of benefits, but only for employers. The Government's costly ad campaigns, intended to add saccharine to vile legislation, seem to be thinning out, suggesting that these PR-exercises are genuinely repulsive for 'Middle Australia'.

Let us not, therefore, interpret these signs as evidence of voters playing the capricious tart, flirting with alternatives, or as indicators of consumers preferring a different political 'brand'. The so-called Labor Party is utterly bereft of vision, or any kind of pro-worker policy, but is still considered by voters to be less repugnant than the alternative. The outcome of this years' Federal Election will not be decided on the basis of who has the nicest soundbites, despite what the pundits tell you. Instead, as Possum's stats suggest, it will be based on a thorough repudiation of all that for which Howard and the Liberals stand.

An Excellent Site

Dear readers, please check out the following site, entitled Howard Facts.

I have no idea who is behind it, but it is polished, and full of damning evidence of Howard's deleterious reign. I particularly liked the section debunking the myth that Australians have not been 'better off' than now. The site also discusses interest rates, Iraq, and of course, Workchoices.

Hopefully, such sites will not be needed for much longer, other than for historians.

The Politics of 'Legacy'

It seems that even Melbourne's Herald Sun may be beginning to turn against the Liberals. In today's opinion section, Bernard Salt has a go at Howard for his alleged bias toward Sydney (as opposed to Melbourne). Whilst not groundbreaking stuff, such complaints are somewhat symbolic, given that Howard's rival, Costello, holds a 'blue-ribbon' Liberal seat in Melbourne. Ian McPhedran also criticises the Government's handling of Doctor Haneef.

The Herald Sun is not the most conservative of the Murdoch tabloids, and, to be sure, a couple of anti-Government articles do not count for much in the bigger scheme of things. Nonetheless, the context of these articles paints a different picture, when we consider that the polls once again point to a significant Labor victory, and even the bookmakers are concurring.

Once again, the question of the Liberals' leadership emerges. We might speculate that the polls would be more favourable for the Government had the leadership changed some time ago, but any change now, by an incumbent Government just months from an election, would be tantamount to conceding defeat.

People will no doubt engage in a few 'psychologisms', and aver that Howard has merely clung onto power for the sake of his own 'legacy'. As influenced by psychoanalysis as I am, I think we ought to resist any analysis of current events that boils things down to matters of individual psychology, and instead, rigorously pursue a political interpretation. In any case, as I have said elsewhere, Howard's Liberal Party colleagues give a much better assessment of his 'character' than I ever could.

So what is the political 'legacy' of Howard, as opposed to the speculative psychodrama? This is an enormous question, so I will just touch on a few points.

Howard rose to power in 1996. Whilst Culture War revisionists like to paint his predecessor, Keating, as some kind of arch-leftist, this was not the case. Keating was one of the most conservative Federal Labor leaders that the country had seen, though was portrayed by the media as indulging a range of 'minority groups', such as Asians, Aboriginals, artists, and environmentalists. It is no coincidence that the period of his demise saw the rise of Pauline Hanson's ironically-titled 'One Nation' party, built on a platform of Asian immigration, and also saw a relatively 'moderate' Liberal party move increasingly toward the politics of dog-whistling, and race-baiting. These latter phenomena are part of Howard's legacy as much as anything else, and are now incorporated into the standard political vocabulary of both major parties.

Howard is no 'statesman', even in comparison to Australia's previous Prime Ministers, on both sides of politics. He has ushered in the era whereby oratory is little more than a jingoistic soundbite, though, in fairness, he has been assisted in his cause by a compliant media. To return to what Slavoj Žižek said about Bill Gates (in The Ticklish Subject), Howard attempts to be seen as neither a 'patriarchal Father-Master', nor a 'corporate Big Brother', but rather, as a kind of 'little brother', a clumsy, bespectacled, tinpot 'patriot', whose ideological agenda is belied by his supposed 'ordinariness', and apparent opportunism.

Much is made of Howard's 'economic credentials', though the recent biography of Howard seems to further undermine this piece of mythology, given Howard's poor record as Treasurer. The best that can be said of Howard's fiscal abilities is that he has 'managed' the economy well, particularly for those who were already wealthy from the beginning. At the same time, a significant underclass of the chronically poor has been firmly sedimented in both rural and metropolitan regions during the Howard years, and the Government has shown no indication that it intends to change this state of affairs (other than by punishing 'bad' parents). Housing prices are, of course, a disaster, particularly for young people hoping to buy their first home, and interest rates are high by the standards of the rest of the developed world. At least investors would appear to benefit.

Then there is the Orwellian state of perpetual war to which Howard has enlisted Australia, a country little more than a US colony in economic and military matters. Howard, supposedly 'in touch' with the battlers, completely ignored the many thousands of ordinary Australians, from churchgoers, to unionists, who protested the so-called 'War on Terror'. I don't recall quite the same numbers of Australians protesting for the war.

In matters of foreign policy, Australia tends to take America's lead. Domestically, Howard encourages all immigrants to 'assimilate' to his version of white, middle-class, conservative Australia, and appeared to have a sanguine view of both the Cronulla riots, and Alan Jones' role in agitating for them. For this reason, Australia has been seen as racism in Europe and Asia for the past few years. Our Government is quick to condemn regimes run by friendless tyrants, such as Mugabe, but falls silent on human rights abusers whose allies carry a bit of international clout.

Political discourse has been reduced to the lowest common denominator. Whilst dissent is tolerated by the regime, it is quickly isolated by the acquiescent media, and repackaged as 'hatred', or some other pathology. A sane person cannot, apparently, be critical of the Government. When, for instance, Howard cobbles together a hastily-conceived 'intervention' into Aboriginal communities, anybody who forwards an alternative proposal is quickly denounced as an endorser of child abuse. The laughable standard of 'debate' in the mainstream media is echoed in Parliament, where 'Mr Speaker' ensures that Opposition questions go routinely unanswered, and Liberal abuse passes for political comment.

Surprisingly, for a 'conservative' Government, Howard has overseen significant growth in the Federal public sector. Part of his legacy has been to ensure that this sector is also heavily-politicised, from the cowboys running DIMIA, to stacking the ABC board full of hard-right cultural warriors. Perhaps public sector growth is necessary, as it is inversely proportional to political responsibility. Public servants make for suitable, and relatively anonymous 'fall guys' when faced with scandals such as AWB, or children overboard, none of which our Government considers as part of its jurisdiction.

Howard has nominally moved toward some recognition of 'climate change', but then, even that exemplar of the 'loony left', Rupert Murdoch, has publicly acknowledged that this issue is important. At this point, the climate change denialists should be pleased that Howard's commitment to this issue remains strictly rhetorical.

The Culture Wars and History Wars have continued throughout Howard's reign, despite the fact that the 'conservatives' are given air-time for increasingly vacuous and intellectually bankrupt views. Moderate commentators and academics such as Robert Manne are denounced for being left-wing extremist 'elites' - apparently, social class is now conceived along educational lines. Part of these 'wars' has seen a refusal to acknowledge one iota of Aboriginal suffering, and, when travelling abroad, it is not difficult to find foreigners who no more about the plight of Aboriginals than does the average Australian. Howard despises 'symbolic' gestures, such as an apology would be. An elementary grasp of any trauma theory would inform us that symbols are intrinsic to the 'working through' of any trauma, though symbols do not, of course, reverse trauma. It is for this reason that Vietnam Vets, suffering from their war-time experiences, campaigned vigourously for a 'symbolic' recognition of their status as 'traumatised', eventually succeeding in having PTSD made into an 'official' medical/psychiatric diagnosis. For Australia's Aborigines, it is not even worth considering additional services or resources - even as regards mere 'symbolic gestures', for Howard, such people, (and their subjectivity) are beneath recognition. New 'conservatism' is 'big-government' and authoritarian, and, naturally, being conservative means never having to say you're sorry.

Howard's IR laws are probably not worth mentioning, given the ink that has already been spilt on them. Among other things, these laws are intended as a bit of union-busting, partly as a result of Howard's ideological leanings, and partly because the unions constitute Labor's support base. The 'user pays' mentality has crept into a range of other areas, such as VSU, Telstra, and the increasing privatisation of the health and education sectors. Australia's great tradition of socialised public services, many of which were world class, appears to be drawing to a close. Perhaps we can look forward to the privatisation of roads and the like.

Howard quietly managed to change electoral laws, so that voting is now more difficult for the young, the transient, and the imprisoned. This will not be of concern to Liberals, given that these demographics probably would not vote Tory in any case.

Civil liberties have been eroded under Howard. The anti-terror legislation sits dubiously in relation to presuppositions of 'innocence until guilt is proven'. The re-introduction of sedition laws are of particular concern, given that such laws have been used (historically) to criminalise peaceful and democratic dissent. It seems to be a case of 'One more sacrifice, Australians, and we shall "win" this war on terror'.

Howard has cultivated the myth of his 'battlers'. Fortunately, for Melbourne, at least, this remains only a myth, as most of the working class reside in safe Labor seats. I cannot speak for the rest of Australia at the present time, but it is obvious that, if a working class person votes Liberal, they are not only being bent over a barrel, they are providing Howard with the lubricant. The backlash against IR laws may yet shatter this myth, as it is not only the 'elites' who are nauseated by Howard's relentless propaganda, with happy, AWA'd workers invading our television screens. In this era of the decline of Marx, 'Workchoices' should at least serve to drive home a few naked truths about capitalism, namely, that workers are merely commodities, cogs in a machine, means to (somebody else's) ends.

The only principled and courageous policy direction that Howard has taken is his stance on gun control. This is the only instance of him being prepared to finally challenge the whims of a minority, for the benefit of society as a whole. To be sure, underworld figures still have guns, but, more importantly, guns are more difficult to obtain for lone psychopaths (such as Martin Bryant, or Julian Knight), and feature less prominently in 'domestics'.

Many of the issues above are beyond any simplistic left-right distinction. Many Australians, of all political stripes, are concerned with such topics. That such ideology, of limited appeal, should have been relentlessly pushed by Howard only serves as a testament to how unrepresentative our 'representatives' in the political class have been.

Clearly, Howard has left a 'legacy' for all to see. Most likely, his decision to remain as leader was not prompted by history's memory of his deeds, but rather, was a cold political decision, based on raw numbers in Caucus, as well as in polls. Howard has won several elections (albeit, very narrowly, in 1998 and 2001), and there is no reason to believe that he will be replaced prior to the next election.

Whatever happens at the election, Howard will be gone in the near future. As we have seen, the Australia that he leaves behind is diminished in virtually every respect, other than in its preponderance of imported plasma televisions.

Nausea, ad nauseum

I probably shouldn't bother with digging up NewsCorpse material: there are a number of blogs in my sidebar who do quite a good job of debunking the latest nonsense emanating from Murdoch's stable.

But who could resist today's offerings, where pro-Howard leftist bashing is in full swing:

Thinking man's chickenhawk, Greg Sheridan, opines about the 'defence of our realm', and takes a swipe at Rudd's plan for staged withdrawal of troops in Iraq, should Labor win Government at the election:

This all speaks well of Rudd's essential centrism and conservatism in
security policy, but it demolishes his argument about the increased terrorist
threat to Australia. Can you just imagine Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri
in their cave at al-Qa'ida central, just inside or just outside Afghanistan,
saying to each other: well, we did have those infidel kangaroos high on our
terror target list when they were in Iraq but now that they're only fighting us
in Afghanistan, where we are, and supporting our enemies throughout the Persian
Gulf, we'll give them a free pass and not send any more terrorists after them.

Sheridan doesn't really address the question of what the hell Australian troops are doing in the Middle East in the first place, fighting dubious (I'm being extremely charitable) wars on behalf of the US and Britain.

Next, we have Noel Pearson, about whom I had occasion to touch on recently. Pearson still wants bipartisan support for Howard's unilateral intervention into Central Australian communities. He concludes:

The principal psychological problem of indigenous leaders is they are
bitter about the Howard Government and its history over the past decade. Our
progressive non-indigenous supporters can afford to devote all of their energies
to willing the New Jerusalem - after all, even a conservative government looks
after them, notwithstanding their contempt - but our people cannot afford this
indulgence.

For a bipartisan guy, he seems to spend a lot of time kicking one side of politics, whilst issuing apologias for the other. I guess that, by now, the 'progressive non-indigenous supporters', and, basically, all Aboriginals who disagree with the Pearson-Howard authoritarian approach should have realised that their reasoned critiques and alternative proposals are tantamount to a mystical enterprise - 'willing the New Jerusalem'. And after all, who can seriously question Howard's exemplary tack record on helping Aboriginals, notwithstanding his contempt.

After Noel, we get Christopher, the more repulsive of the Pearsons, pontificating about how wonderfully the Church has dealt with modernity, 'unlike fundamentalist Islam'. It's possibly easier to deal with post-modernity when Western powers aren't bombing the shit out of you, but Pearson does not include this in his theological musings. One paragraph in particular caught my eye:

Both Benedict and his predecessor, John Paul II, have been formidable
philosophers. They shared the view that the trajectory of modernity, considered
as a project, was along the nihilist lines laid out by Nietzsche in Beyond Good
and Evil. In the communist bloc it culminated in the gulag. In the capitalist
world they see people commodified as units of production and consumers in a
largely amoral, global marketplace.

I don't care to speculate on the philosophical abilities of Popes past and present. Nonetheless, Pearson obviously hasn't actually read the Nietzsche book he cites, or he might have noted that Nietzsche explicitly rails against 'nihilism' (or at least, a particular version of it), and could be expected to have virulently opposed both communism and consumerism. The irony of the likes of Pearson eulogising the world, whose innocence has been lost at the market-place should not be lost on anyone, excluding loyal readers of The Australian. It is appropriate that he concludes his jeremiad with a parting shot at the 'moralising' of Robert Manne, again caught out suggesting that Aboriginals might have suffered injustice in Australia's past.

Economics editor, Alan Wood, kindly assures us that, contrary to all of the evidence that adult Australians would encounter on a daily basis, there actually isn't a housing crisis. Sure, housing is frightfully expensive, but, Wood tells us, that's why the Howard Government has cut back on income tax. Moreover, he avers, the real 'wealth distribution' answer to any housing 'crisis' that may exist is to get grandparents and parents to fund homes for their less wealthy offspring. A perfect solution, one feels, as long as one has wealthy parents.

Not content to leave it there, today's Pravda also features a column by ABC board member, and the Hungarian answer to Piers Akerman, Imre Salusinszky. But, small mercies, he is merely extolling the virtues of Dickens, rather than righteously crusading against the madness of the left.

It is ironic that possibly the most intelligent article among this gaggle comes from Melbourne's tabloid, the Herald Sun. It's more propaganda from Hitchens, of course, but he at least is one member of the Politburo who appears to be trying.

No wonder 'the West' is losing every struggle, what with that 'liberal' (or Liberal) media.

Rewriting History

At Australia's very own Department for Historical Truth and Ideological Purity, one Michael Costello has responded to Brendan Nelson's gaffe about oil by blithely asserting that the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with oil:

If control of vital oil supplies were to end up in the hands of our enemies, who
choose to use it to blackmail us and our friends and allies, or to further
causes hostile to us, that would be a disaster for us and many others.
What
is weird, however, is the ludicrous leap of illogic that says that to state this
self-evident proposition is to automatically imply that the real reason we went
to war with Saddam Hussein's regime in March 2003 was oil.
If oil were our
dominant interest, we would have done exactly the opposite. We would have done a
deal with Saddam that accepted the continuation of his brutal regime and we
would have turned a blind eye to his return, with renewed vigour, to the pursuit
of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Recall that while no evidence
of such weapons was found by inspectors after the 2003 attacks, evidence was
found of Saddam's determination to resume those programs as soon as he could
complete the undermining of UN sanctions and remove the UN inspection regime.
What would the US have got in return for accommodating Saddam in this way?
Oil, as much as it wanted, at discount prices.

Costello also cites Bob Hawke, out of context, in defense of the Coalition of the Drilling. In response, I posted a reply to this latest piece of asshattery. I provide it here, in full, should it fail to see the light of day on the News Limited website:

This is an extraordinarily disingenuous article, even by The Australian's standards.

Firstly, Hawke's comments were in a rather different context to the present day, or 2003, for that matter. The invasion of 2003 occurred after years of sanctions, against a country with a heavily-depleted military, surrounded by no-fly zones, and who, in contrast to 1991, had not issued any violent provocation.

Secondly, Saddam was planning to trade oil in Euros, not the greenback, which could have been expected to have had significant ramifications for the US economy.

Thirdly, unlike the other despots with whom the US coquettes, US interests were not in a position to simply make a deal and receive 'discount oil'. The oil was already contracted to a number of nations who opposed the US invasion, such as France, China, and Russia.

Clearly, oil was not the sole motivating factor for Iraq's liberation - other factors include geo-political strategy, the neoconservative ideology of 'failed states' and 'democracy building', and US domestic politics. Nonetheless, to suggest that Iraq's invasion had nothing to do with oil, that it would have been of 'interest' if its chief export were bottle tops, is a monstrous piece of revisionist fiction, the likes of which would make even Stalin blush with shame.

It is not for nothing that Howard, Bush and Blair have all been subject to widespread public cynicism. Irrespective of Howard's frantic back-pedalling, the gaffe-prone Nelson was only confirming what many Australians take as self-evident.


We shall see if it appears.

News in Brief: Stopped Clock Right

Erstwhile tosser and friend of imbecility, Michael Duffy from the Sydney Morning Herald, gave his $0.02 on the topic of Australia's 'crisis' in relation to Aboriginal child protection. This is a topic I discussed last week, stating my views here, and providing rebuttal to the claims of a moron here.

It seems that I am not the only one to have made a connection between the 'interventions' of Iraq and Central Australia. Duffy's article asks us to -

Consider this in conjunction with the regrettable absence of any new
foreign wars or upsets in this election year, and you can see why Coalition HQ
selected the Territory as this year's failed state requiring intervention. The
Government gets another khaki election without having to leave home.
If this
view is true, does it matter? I think it does, because while there is a national
emergency, this solution is woefully inadequate and might fail. I think
conservative and liberal theory tell us this. So it's curious that no one on the
intellectual right has stepped forward to say so, or even to reflect on the
obvious similarities between what's happening now and the invasion of
Iraq.

There's an 'intellectual' right now? (Cue accusations of latte-related 'elitism').

Duffy concludes:

The problem with much that has been said on this issue in the past week is that
the definition of the problem has been so entangled in Howard's solution that
the latter has dominated discussion. For 11 years this Government largely
ignored the horrific plight of so many Aboriginal Australians. (It says it's
acting now because of a recent report on child sex abuse. Many reports have said
the same things over the past decade.)
The Government's welcome realisation
that the situation constitutes a national emergency is therefore a dramatic
jump, one that could have led to serious national debate while the Government
worked on a wide-ranging solution. But the announcement of this crisis came in
the same breath as the proposed neo-military solution, leaving no space for such
discussion and focusing most attention on law and order.
I hope that in five
years these comments will appear misjudged, and that the Government will come up with a comprehensive plan and the billions of dollars needed to fund it. But at
the moment, it appears the right has learnt little from its conceptual and
military failures in Iraq.

Michael Duffy, former Government shill, has clearly joined the ranks of those 'willing failure', in Australia and abroad. Apparent appeaser of terrorism, and apologist for child abuse, may he repent by clapping his hands for Howard a little bit louder, that he may be able to 'will' success. Not that 'success' for the Government means 'success' for anybody else.

Maybe if one member of the right can discuss the issue non-hysterically, perhaps others can too. Nonetheless, I won't be holding my breath.

Friends, Australians, Countrymen...

Lend me your ears!

We have come to bury child abuse, not to praise it.

The evil that policies do lives after them

The good is oft' interred with...





As every Australian will be aware, the Federal Government, primarily Prime Minister John Howard, and Indigenous Affairs Minister, Mal Brough, with the endorsement of Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson, have declared a 'national emergency'. The emergency relates to Aboriginals who dwell in Australia's mythic heartland, the red outback of Central Australia. Veritable 'rivers of grog' have left communities awash in a sea of child sexual abuse, brutal family violence, and rampant sexual abuse. Vital services that might have stemmed the flow of this tide have been chronically under-resourced. Plan after plan, committee after think-tank, has been implemented, without success. The time for talk, or indeed, for thought, is over. Now is the time for action.



At least, this is the message that we have been given by our Government, and by Pearson, repeatedly over the past week. This message has been repeated by many of those who provide opinions in Australia's media. Indeed, the central contention at issue here is not disputed - people of all political stripes believe that there is a problem, that this problem is devastatingly serious, and that something must be done.



Where agreement ends, however, is in the detail. Sceptics point to Howard's history, and paint a picture of a cynical man, who seeks to generate good publicity during an election year, in the midst of disastrous polls. These sceptics are derided as pathological ‘haters’ of Howard, too blinded by ideological enmity to see the benefits of his plan.

Critics point to the lack of consultation with Aboriginal communities. In response, they are told, that consultation has been tried and failed. Such 'niceties' must give way to direct intervention where an emergency is concerned. The gravity of the current crisis is such that a state of exception is in order, whereby the usual processes of debate must be suspended.

Never mind the fact that, of course, this emergency relates to a state of affairs that was near-identical last year, and the year before. Federal and Territory governments were perfectly well aware of this, and did not declare any state of emergency. The NT Government actually approached its Federal counterparts for assistance last year, and were ignored.

Never mind that community consultation has empirical support to suggest its usefulness in the development of these sorts of interventions.

Never mind that land rights will be swept aside, to make way for leases for the communities concerned, only a fortnight after the Federal Government sought to purchase the relevant land.

Never mind that child protection services, ordinarily a State Government jurisdiction, are overburdened to the point of shambles in relatively wealthy, and well-resourced parts of the country (a topic to which I shall return in another post).

Never mind that no amount of 'Leftist' or Aboriginal dissent will influence Government policy one iota, and is therefore completely harmless to Howard's plan.

Never mind that intrusive medical checks, and subjugation to dispassionate authority can re-traumatise those children who have already been hurt. (Of this, the Government says it will be 'mindful').

Never mind the fact that communities are scared that this intervention will see the onset of another Stolen Generation. Prevailing wisdom indicates that perpetrators, not victims, ought to be removed, but the past experience of some communities will prove contrary to this wisdom.

Never mind that the report that sparked this 'emergency' has been ignored, in terms of the detail of its recommendations.

These facts are irrelevant, according to several articles in today's Australian. Both parties have supported the intervention of police and army, therefore the issue is bipartisan. Furthermore, according to Sheridan, Pearson himself is politically bipartisan, a sincere man seeking only to drive politicians to assist his people. The sceptics should 'ditch politics'; after all, Pearson says so, and Pearson is an honourable man.

The Editorial piece advises us that dissenters to the Howard/Pearson proposal are motivated solely by 'blind hatred' - dissent is, obviously, a pathology. After all, dissent is a will to failure, and 'Those who would rather see children continue to suffer than for the Howard plan to succeed should be ashamed of themselves.'

In the same paper, talk-back radio host and News Ltd. writer Neil Mitchell takes umbrage at rival broadsheet, The Age, for its questioning of the proposals. As he puts it:

Get angry with this. Get angry with the chattering classes like The Age who
turn it into a philosophical discussion. This is about kids. It's about
protecting kids and women. This is about people.

It must be self-evident that matters involving people are beyond both politics, and philosophy, and 'chatter'. That is, beyond anything that might subject the Government's plans to even the slightest scrutiny.

Pearson himself made an appearance on ABC's Lateline a couple of nights ago, explaining his support for the plan. His speech was widely lauded for its passion and integrity. He too indicated that dissent to the proposal was equivalent to 'willing failure':

I think that those who have objections to immediate intervention have to
ask themselves whether they're willing this whole exercise to fail, and geez, if
you're willing the whole exercise to fail, what kind of priorities do you have
in relation to the wellbeing of Indigenous children?

The good-willed dissenters apparently also are responsible for current problems in Iraq. Pearson says so, and Pearson is an honourable man:

You know, I hear people bleat uphill and down about self-determination and
in my view self-determination is about people taking responsibility for
themselves, for their own families and for their communities and, you know, it's
an absolutely shameful hour that has descended on us, absolutely shameful hour
where even an emergency intervention to protect the safety of our children is
hindered, is hindered by people who supposedly have good will for Aboriginal
people and in fact, those people are willing, they are willing the protection
and succour to Aboriginal children to fail in the same way and as vehemently as
they will failure in Iraq.

This latter comment is of particular significance, given that it has been noted by the usual pro-Howard shills, in order to further condemn idle discussion. Any hesitation in implementing Howard's proposal is interpreted as yet more evidence of moral depravity from those who dissent. These people are not normally concerned for the welfare of Aboriginals, but priorities change when there are political points to be scored.

Pearson's reference to Iraq is a telling one. Prior to war in 2003, we saw the emergence of emergency, a state of crisis to which the only response was to suspend critical faculties, and proceed to direct action, for the greater good. A state of exception was declared, thus legitimising the extraordinary occurrence of a 'pre-emptive' 'shock and awe' campaign. Yes, thousands protested in the streets, and on the Internet; but then, as now, it made little difference. To disagree with the war was to will a failure of treasonous proportions. In any case, it is fortunate for these unpatriotic dissenters that Bush declared the mission accomplished in 2003, thus rendering failure impossible. The bloodshed that is occurring on a massive scale is apparently a measure of success for war-supporters.

We have an analogous situation here. A long-standing, genuinely tragic, but opportunely 'urgent' situation has to entail that all disagreement to the Government's proposal must be shouted down. One of the most authoritarian and hastily-conceived interventions in Australian history is to be imposed upon our most vulnerable people, without a whimper.

Thus years of inaction, and criminal neglect by Federal, State and Territorial governments gives way to a suspension of all thought. Forget about 'land rights', Pearson tells us, and Pearson, after all, is an honourable man.

Yet just yesterday, the same Federal Government ended its funding for an Aboriginal Employment program in WA.

An author of the Little Children are Sacred report doubts that the Government has got it right.

In a circulating letter, an Aboriginal activist pleads for the Government to reconsider its implementation of the plan.

Aboriginal community leaders have penned an open letter, asking for urgent consultation before the Government's solution is imposed on them.

The ACT's Human Rights Commissioner has condemned the discriminatory singling-out of Aboriginal families for special treatment at the hands of interveners.

Of course, in a time of national emergency, silence is needed. The kind of silence that has been shown by the Labor party, and that Howard himself found 'puzzling'. A silence is needed that will stifle any alternative proposals, any consultation, any questioning. After all, as Neil Mitchell and Noel Pearson say, this is not a philosophical discussion. And Noel Pearson, at least, is an honourable man.

Perhaps they are all honourable men. We can see who is condemning whom, in fits of moral righteousness. The well-meaning dissenters, the thinkers, the other Aboriginal leaders, and those who prattle on about 'rights', are finally getting their come-uppance. Major flaws notwithstanding, to disagree with the plan is to endorse child abuse! Silence is all that is required, and the plan will continue, if need be, irrespective of it.

I make no claims about Noel Pearson's 'integrity', or sincerity. I do not doubt for an instant that he is no Howard stooge. Yes, he is an honourable man. Yes, he is right - urgent action is desperately needed. Nonetheless, if, in his enthusiasm for change, he has 'backed the wrong horse' as they say, and availed his honour to the promotion of a rightfully distrusted Government, he shall be a Brutus to his people.

In the interest of fairness...

The next Federal election is drawing ever closer, even if the Liberals haven't had the chutzpah to call it yet. Those who aren't Liberal supporters must scarcely believe what they're seeing: Labor well ahead in the polls, over a period of months, and yet, according to the bookies, at least, still a plausible contender for the coveted 'underdog' status.

Those who aren't paid-up members of the Bennelong Boil's fan club may need to take these next few months as an opportunity to reflect upon Australia's second-longest serving Prime Minister.

Criticism of Howard from 'the Left' is often derided as 'Howard Hating', and apparently diagnostic of psychopathy (if you believe Janet Albrechtson at any rate). In the interests of showing that this Revolutionary is 'Fair and Balanced', I thought it fitting, therefore, to include some reflections on Howard by his own party colleagues.

Liberal Senator George Brandis:

Liberal Senator George Brandis does not deny routinely referring to the
Prime Minister as "the rodent".
He does, however, deny ever calling the Prime
Minister "a lying rodent". He believes John Howard is a truthful rodent.

Former Federal President of the Liberal Party, Shane Stone:

Mean and tricky, out of touch, and not listening.

Former Liberal Party leader, John Hewson:

To an Asian, our solution to the Tampa reeks of racism. It further feeds a
suspicion that still persists in Asia that we have never abandoned the White
Australia Policy.

Current MP, Wilson Tuckey on Howard:

Gutless.

Finally, it takes a Victorian to put some things best. Everyone knows that a Victorian's eloquence is matched only by his or her political acumen. To that end, it is only appropriate to recall a taped conversation between Andrew Peacock and Jeff Kennett, wherein the latter expressed his sentiments on our present leader, by way of recalling a conversation he had with Howard:

I said, "Tomorrow John" and he said, "I know where your sympathies lie",
and I said, "I couldn't give a fuck. I have no sympathies any more. You're all a
pack of shits and tomorrow I'm going berserk". Well he went off his brain and in
the end I said to him, I said, "Howard. You're a cunt. You haven't got my
support, you never will have and I'm not going to rubbish you or the party
tomorrow but I feel a lot better having told you you're a cunt."

I hope these guys are available for comment on election night.

Don't know much 'bout history, Don't know much 'bout geography...

Polling at the commencement of the Iraq War found that a majority (75%) of Americans supported the invasion. When the same polling occurred in April 2007, a majority (58%) said that the invasion was 'a mistake'. Public opinion around the world was even less favourable about Bush's war.

With this in mind, take a look at another recent survey, this one by Newsweek. The survey examined the views and beliefs of 1001 Americans aged 18 or older. The results were not flattering.

Even today, more than four years into the war in Iraq, as many as four in
10 Americans (41 percent) still believe Saddam Hussein’s regime was directly
involved in financing, planning or carrying out the terrorist attacks on 9/11,
even though no evidence has surfaced to support a connection.

The work of Republican speechwriters and Faux News has obviously paid off, then. One wonders what support for the invasion would be like if that 41 percent had their facts correct.

A majority of Americans were similarly unable to pick Saudi Arabia in a
multiple-choice question about the country where most of the 9/11 hijackers were
born. Just 43 percent got it right—and a full 20 percent thought most came from
Iraq.

The pollsters don't speculate as to why this might be: perhaps it is because Iran's (soon-to-be-invaded?) theocracy has taken the limelight from Saudi Arabia's brutal Wahhabist regime. The latter regime is, of course, of great concern to human rights organisations, but of much less concern to our bearers of 'Democracy', who count the Saudis among their allies.

And perhaps because most (85 percent) are aware that Osama bin Laden remains at large, roughly half of the poll’s respondents (52 percent) think that the United States is losing the fight against his terror group, Al Qaeda, despite no military defeats or recent terrorist attacks to suggest as much.

No military defeats (the Iraq War was declared 'mission accomplished' 4 years ago) and no recent terrorist attacks, yet the War on Terror is being lost; more cause for Washington (or Canberra) fear-mongering, no doubt. It is amusing to ponder the responses of the 15 percent who believe that bin Laden isn't actually at large. Osama's doing Elvis gigs in Vegas, perhaps?

Other results of the poll are also embarrassing:

Roughly half (53 percent) are aware that Judaism is an older religion than
both Christianity and Islam (41 percent aren’t sure). And a quarter of the
population mistakenly identify either Iran (26 percent) or India (24 percent) as
the country with the largest Muslim population. Only 23 percent could correctly
identify Indonesia. Close to two thirds (61 percent) are aware that the Roman
Empire predates the Ottoman, British and American empires.

It would be easy to interpret these results as evidence of 'dumb' Americans, and make reference to anecdotes of crass and boorish US travellers. After all, anyone in America (or Australia) with the inclination and resources can readily obtain a few basic facts about the world. Yet I think we should resist the 'only in America' interpretation, and sketch some possible explanations.

When discussing political matters, I often take the media to task. The reason for this is that, all that most people know about politics is what media agencies choose to tell them. Entire speeches are routinely condensed into soundbites, and state propaganda is allowed to pass unfiltered through a complicit media. This phenomenon has been discussed at length by the likes of Chomsky, who argued that US propaganda is as effective and pervasive as anything the Soviets employed with Pravda. Faux News and Australia's own Government Gazette differ from Politburo literature only in their sophistication. Clearly, the constant linking of Iraq and 11/9 by Governments and the media is a possible explanation for the results above.

Yet this is not the full story. Another recent (June 2007) poll that I found (courtesy of Ken L) found that respondents generally did not trust the media in America. Only 23% said that they had a 'great deal' or 'quite a lot' of confidence in television news. The figure was 22% when applied to the print media. State indoctrination cannot be the only explanation here. We might perhaps say of supporters of the war, after Žižek, that this is a case of 'they know what they are doing, yet they are doing it all the same'.

The next obvious target for criticism would logically be the education system, which, despite the bleatings of 'cultural warriors' here and in the States, has blatantly failed to educate its citizens with information that is damaging for the reigning regimes. Supposedly 'post-modern' teaching of history cannot be blamed for an ignorance of basic facts.

Whatever the explanation, it is likely that history shall remember the twin destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan as the most significant political event of the early 21st Century. Like Lady Macbeth's spot, the stain of blood spilled for conquest is not easily washed off, even in the face of pervasive ignorance. This is especially true when the 'spot' of blood is often more reminiscent of a torrent.

Shakespearean analogies aside, the significant distortion of history by our pro-Government, chickenhawk cheer-squads ensures that where there would be tragedy, there is instead farce.

I am not optimistic, but perhaps a little knowledge would go a long way to slowing America's sabre-rattling towards Iran. The Venezualans too fear that the Coalition will seek to 'democratise' them. Whilst it may seem a little too interventionist for the weak-stomached libertarians out there, perhaps the following should be distributed to the public, as a kind of war prophylactic:

Newsflash: The honeymoon is over, but love is still in the air...

Perhaps French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan, was thinking of Prime Minister Howard's well-known care and respect for the Australian people when he said:

'Love is giving something you don't have, to someone who doesn't want it.'

Expensive Propagandist Bullshit

The Liberal Party's Murdoch helper monkeys have come out in force recently, spinning to a degree that could be measured in g-force. The Australian's latest propaganda piece, is, appropriately enough, about the Liberals' latest propaganda piece. Entitled 'Getting the right message across on IR', it begins with a reasonable-enough question, then moves into 'hard sell' mode:

At what point does public information become government propaganda? This is
the delicate road along which the Howard Government has embarked in a bid to
claw back the support of voters spooked by a spirited ACTU campaign against the
new industrial relations laws.

At what point indeed? Of course, a 'public information' campaign by an incumbent government is to be distinguished by a union scare campaign, that will leave voters 'spooked'. A multi-million dollar advertising blitz, to supplement the previous (failed) multi-million dollar advertising blitz, is not, according to our good editor, a waste of public funds. Even if it were a gross and propagandist waste of taxpayers' hard-earned, this is immaterial, as it's 'not that the Opposition would be doing anything different were it in the Government's position'.

But it goes on:

The reality is the Government remains under pressure on industrial
relations in the face of a fierce and misleading campaign by the ACTU and Labor.
But as today's Newspoll shows, exactly how the industrial relations issue will
play out come the election remains unclear. What is certain is that public
confusion over Work Choices remains, including a widespread misunderstanding
about whether it has yet been introduced.

A 'misleading campaign'? What, like the Government one, depicting happy workers standing around, basking in the glory and happiness of having lost their award conditions? And public 'misunderstanding'? Are we to attribute voters' resentment at being shafted as an error of reason?

Throughout the piece, it is noteworthy that the editorial neglects to mention that the proposed changes to Workchoices have not even been shown to Parliament yet, and could, in theory, at least, be rejected. Given that Workchoices is the fundamental difference between this election and the 2004 election, it is a little disingenuous to suggest that the impact of IR is 'unclear'.

The Government argues that the campaign is needed to counter the high-spending
negative campaign being waged against Work Choices.

The ads that have run against Workchoices have been relatively low-budget, late-night affairs, funded with private money (i.e. paid for by union members). Note the contrast between these and the extravagantly glossy drivel dished up by the Government in its advertising campaign, paid for with public funds.

The sort of workplace flexibility that is supported by both employees and
employers has never required people to be unfairly stripped of pay and
conditions. And if it was not the Government's intention to drive down working
conditions there is no reason why a no-disadvantage test should not have been
included in the original legislation.

If there was 'no reason' not to include a no-disadvantage test, then why did the Government scrap the test in the first place? Are we to believe that it was a mere oversight during the legislative orgy that spewed forth a 1000-page industrial relations bonanza (for employers only)? Of course, according to our Murdoch-employed friends, it is perfectly reasonable for our wise and benevolent Government to not only bend workers over a barrel with Workchoices, but to ensure that workers are lubricated with expensive false advertising until they like it.

Attempting to place limits on the ability of any government to
communicate with its people should be discouraged. The risk that such
advertisements may prove counterproductive if voters concentrate on the money
being wasted, rather than the message, should be deterrent enough to
excess.

Hear, hear. The Howard Government has listened to public opinion on a range of other issues (Iraq, Hicks, environment), there can be no question that they will avoid 'excess' whilst left unchecked, and in complete control of the Senate.

Excellent analysis of Workchoices-related issues can be found here. Still, the mind boggles. Just how does The Australian come up with this stuff?