The John Howard years. Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

Today more of your many comments on Howard’s road to absolute power. Don’t get depressed, get motivated!

For a run down on Bush’s attempt to concentrate media ownership in the United States, Webdiarist Sue Bushell recommends makethemaccountable for a piece called ‘Kickback’. David Podvin writes:

Democracy is dependent on having a well-informed electorate, but the American people will now have even less contact with a diversity of information. The vast majority of citizens get their news from television. Their access to the data on which they form their views will be controlled by an ever-smaller number of media executives, all of whom are allied with the Republican Party. This concentration of power will further skew the political debate on all major issues in the direction of the corporate bottom line, and in favor of those candidates who are corporate functionaries. The interests of common people will be further marginalized. The inevitable result will be a diminished standard of living and inferior quality of life for the average American.

The debasement of journalism is a perversion of the very essence of the United States. Thomas Jefferson wrote that the American system could not survive without an independent press. He knew that the influence of the economic elite had to be counterbalanced by journalists who were free to expose the truth about even the wealthiest predators. Throughout this nation’s history, the independence of the press has been protected as a necessity for a free republic. With the advent of the electronic media, the executive branch of the federal government assumed responsibility for preventing powerful interests from effectively monopolizing public access to information.

Now, the executive branch is controlled by someone who is in league with those seeking to attain such a monopoly. By granting to his media allies the ability to eliminate competition in the marketplace of ideas, Bush is furthering his own career at the expense of the country he has sworn to protect and defend. His endless series of corporate tax cuts is creating huge budget deficits that will ultimately be repaid by the middle class. The flood of red ink that flows from this larceny is being used as justification for slashing spending on health care, child abuse clinics, and other safety net programs that have existed to protect the most vulnerable citizens. With the active support of the journalistic establishment, Bush is bankrupting America in order to enrich his campaign contributors, including the companies that own the mainstream media. In return, the mainstream media protects Bush and marginalizes his critics. It is a win-win situation, with the only losers being the American people.

See any parallels with John Howard’s attempt to hand control of our mainstream media to Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer, or to Murdoch and one of the mega-US media companies? As I’ve written over the last week, this issue isn’t about whether you vote Liberal, Labor, Green, Democrats or One Nation. It’s about your right to know, and your right to have the people you vote for represent YOU.

Jozef Imrich sent me Media Monopolies Still Can’t Unearth the Truth by Edward Wasserman, first published in the Miami Herald. Remember, there are many newspaper owners in the USA, so this sort of thing can still be published in the mainstream press over there. And it wouldn’t be written if the paper was part of a big TV network, now would it? It begins:

The affair of Jessica Lynch, the U.S. Army private who was injured in Iraq and rescued in a commando raid, seems unrelated to monopoly control of the media. But the handling of her story offers good reason to cheer Senate elders for moving to reverse the ideologically besotted Federal Communications Commission decision to trash safeguards against deepening concentration of media ownership.

I’ll begin your remarks with a favourite webdiarist, Peter Gellatly in Canada.

Peter Gellatly

It’s admittedly difficult to keep the emotions cool during the present increasingly vicious struggle over values, but keep cool we must if we are to turn the tide.

First, many on the left (among whom I am bemused to find myself in contemporary consort) need to recognise that the neoconservative agenda is EARNESTLY held by many of its proponents. They fervently believe they are correct and that dissenters are nitwits, thus they are not amenable to our arguments. And the more strident we become, the greater the degree to which our arguments shall be buried beneath our rhetoric in public debate.

Margo, assuming – for I simply don’t know – that your assessment of Howard’s larger purpose is insightful, opponents of that purpose need to recognise that remaking Australia either as a neocon US carbon copy, or even as the actual 51st state, is a legitimate aspiration within our democracy, with the latter alternative promising additional economic and defence dividends.

Those determined to move Australia in an alternative direction – ie towards a more independent, more liberal and plural democracy – need to supplement their anti-neocon putdowns by cogent arguments in favour of their own goals.

Moreover, talk alone is cheap. The bull needs to be taken by the horns. There is only one way to halt the present trend towards outright nastiness: that is by throwing the Coalition out at the first opportunity. To achieve this, Greens, Democrats, disaffected Coalition supporters (like me) and sundry others need to hold our noses and support and advocate for Labor (I never thought I’d say this – I’ve always championed voting for the best local member, but the times call for cohesive action.) In doing so, we shall hopefully also beneficially impact and broaden that parity’s policy outlook, thereby improving its subsequent competence in government.

Rather than being merely negatively vocal towards “the man WHO ALLOWS… to write … without being hurled in jail” (…!?!?!????) – see Tom Shanahan in Reaction to Howard’s roads to absolute power – we must ACT, positively. The next election campaign has already begun.

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George Hirst, editor of The Magnetic Times newspaper in North Queensland

Thanks so much for your work on keeping democracy alive. As one of the tiny independents the issues are particularly relevant.

Even on our modest scale we are under a constant gag from our own Townsville City Council, which has refused us press releases for about 2 years now. They know all to well how to avoid an independent minded press, and either don’t get back when we seek a comment on any issue at all or take so long, ie weeks, that any deadline is well and truly gone. Great stuff – and our rates pay for it too!

It’s all part of the same game, just down to the micro level, and reading your columns of late I would like to do whatever we can to give them a push. We have already linked to your page but I’d like to go further if possible and run some of your stuff straight off the front page. (MARGO: Yes, please!!)

We no longer print our hard copy Magnetic Times anymore. It just got too expensive so we are now a totally on-line paper. We average around 220 visits a day and I’m sure your stuff would be very welcome by our readers. Keep up the great work.

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Noel Hadjimichael in Camden

Disclosure: small town conservative with liberal leanings on some issues

I was surprised and somewhat alarmed that you should fall into the trap of hyperbole and propaganda with your piece on Howard’s road to absolute power. The Webdiary has generally achieved its objective of ensuring lively and informed debate on often neglected public policy issues.

Your analysis about the personalities and the hidden agendas is as always spot on. However, I must question whether the doomsday scenario painted by you and some fellow diarists is at all credible.

Certain facts get in the way of a good story on “power gone mad”:

1. The rule of law is still entrenched,

2. The Senate is powerful because, not despite, its majority of non-government Senators,

3. This year’s rooster is invariably next year’s featherduster,

4. The policy dominance you recognise may well be the emergence of a new majority opinion (on border protection, security, taxes or even Telstra) rather than some evil conspiracy,

5. Leadership is always conditional upon success and perceptions of success,

6. Our pollies are operating in a post-ideological era when most big-picture issues are common ground (remember the petty drama between Labor’s desire for a UN mandate for war versus the Coalition’s preparedness to back bilateral interests),

7. Media diversity exists due to technology more so than ownership of traditional media,

8. Australians have happily accepted the ascendancy of Labor at State and Territory level with the preservation of a strong focused non-Labor Commonwealth government,

9. The saga of Dr Peter Hollingworth is an example of where the jackals of public opinion have hunted and removed someone at the very pinnacle of the traditional power elite,

10. When Labor want to do something radical it is often termed “progressive”, when Liberals wish to promote substantive change to current policy settings it is termed “nightmare or bombshell” right wing thuggery.

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Rod Owens

Congratulations on an prescient article, and one which engenders feelings of impotence and anger. I think that it is about time the alarm bells where rung before they can be rung no more!

I have been reading Arthur MacEwan’s Neo-Liberalism or Democracy and Rifkin’s The End of Work, and have been alarmed by the speed with which Howard is achieving the goals of the neo-liberal agenda.

Perhaps one hopeful outcome is the creation of a ‘virtual organisation’ where the agenda can be thwarted!

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Brian Long

I found your recent article on Howard terribly frightening. I then read in Tom Engelhardt’s daily dispatch in the USA a somewhat similar but more extreme version of the same reality in the United States (seenationinstitutetomdispatch, and scroll down to ‘It’s a wonderful life’).

At the heart of both pieces is a media unwilling to confront issues of truth. This is not to say that no journalists are taking up the issues – I wouldn’t be writing this if that were the case. Keep up the good work. Both Howard and Bush are creating and trading on people’s fears and insecurities. Both are slamming the poorest and blaming international terrorism.

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Kate Cherry in Tamworth

Margo, I hope so much that many more Australians are hearing what you are saying regarding this issue. Go girl! I for one don’t want Murdoch and Packer to run Australia, which I believe would be the case. The influence they could exert with more media concentration is unthinkable. You have another supporter here.

I don’t want to imagine Australians influenced by the likes of media moguls with such bias and prejudice that the truth goes begging. I feel I want to go tell it on the mountain…..Please Australians, speak out/write letters against increased media concentration.

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Andy Gray

The possibility that we are on the road to the creation of a fascist state ruled by both state and corporate with the public agenda set by the media that they control scares me to my soul.

Back in April you took a few weeks off and said that you were going to have a think about where the Webdiary might go from here. I doubt whether you were considering the removal of cross-media ownership and the ramifications for the free press in Australia when you made these comments, but the consequences of what you discuss certainly will have an impact upon the medium to long term future of Webdiary.

It has often been said that a person should hope for the best, but plan for the worst. I hope that you already have contingency plans to continue an independent voice of the press in Australia should all our worst fears be realised in the next year or two.

It may be that you simply get the infrastructure and domain names set up now. It may also mean that you have to take that extra step, setting up the charter for the new Australian Independent Press website and starting to get contributions to the site. I hope that I am simply being paranoid, but I would hate to think that the new owners of Fairfax would be able to silence your voice a year from now without you having already provided a forwarding address.

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Aaron Dibdin

It’s amazing, someone who works for a major media player with a dissenting voice. It’s nice to see, particularly given the current climate. but there’s a little bit of a problem. We are already seeing that there is no ‘freedom of speech’ and your writing proves it. Whereas Piers “the hutt” Akerman gets column inches every second day in a mass circulation advertisement with smatterings of propaganda in which he simply quotes vast tracts of liberal press releases, you are stuck in a (practically) hidden page in the smh website. The voices of dissent are hidden.

It’s like nobody wants to know. People, as John Howard very astutely said, want to feel ‘relaxed and comfortable’. They don’t want to have to agitate for something better, they want to think this is better. Hence the proliferation of mindless TV like the block, the rush to buy investment properties … People like to think they’re in control, they don’t have to worry, and maybe soon they won’t have to vote…

The world is a far scarier place than people want to believe. It’s funny to think that in ‘The Matrix’, the illusion is provided by computers. People are suffering but they’ve been tricked by a cartesian ‘evil demon’ to believe that they’re ok. Perhaps this is what the Wachowski brothers initially based their ideas upon – but $300 million later, maybe not.

Margo: I’m proud to write for the SMH online. It’s a privilege for which I’m very grateful to my employer. In my view, Fairfax stands for a diversity of voices and a thirst for breaking stories. The Fairfax journalism culture is to be skeptical of all governments and other sites of power and to strive to keep them accountable. This is a major reason why both Labor and Liberal governments have despised our work and sought to reduce our influence. Our culture is also based on ethical reporting, accountability to our readers, and editorial independence. As a company owning only media assets, there are few conflicts of interest to worry about when deciding what the news is. Fairfax is worth saving.

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Andrew Halliday in St Lucia, Brisbane

I found your article very interesting and I am sad to say I am completely in agreement with you. First and foremost, democracy in this country has failed us, whereas in the UK it still appears to be working. Apart from the ALP remaining completely unable to make any impact, the real art of democracy has failed because the people INSIDE the Liberal party are unable to stop him.

Where are all the leaders from within? Why isn’t Costello standing up and stopping Howard’s bizarre and worrying agenda? Can’t the “faithful” see the wood for the trees?

And the Media! Why is Howard allowed to get away with lying to us? Why is this government allowed to do as it wishes? Are Rupert and Kerry’s so powerful that only Fairfax can say anything negative about the government? How did this happen? (By the way why doesn’t Fairfax have a paper in Brisbane where I live?)

I feel completely powerless to do anything about where our formerly great country is heading. I read people like you and Peter Fitzsimon’s provocative articles in the paper and watch the ABC try their hardest. And yet nothing happens.

Howard didn’t even turn a hair when a million people marched against the war, and yet the majority of Australians still support him. What can we do?

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Martin Williams

It seems to me that one element not highlighted here thus far is the thorough neutering of the church as a moral authority in Australian public life. There may be significant implications resulting from this.

Hollingworth’s downfall might have irked Howard in one way, yet it must have been very convenient to have yet another high-profile champion of the poor and the marginalised removed so disgracefully from a pedestal of credibility. Forget about weekend Christians and the secular remainder; even your average Australian of active faith is probably rather cynical and exhausted

from the relentless discrediting of various denominational structures and cultures (primarily over child sexual abuse but there are other reasons). Being the local minister of religion just doesn’t have the halo of pastoral entitlement and ethical command that it used to.

There was a time perhaps when criticism by politicians of senior church leaders for issuing manifestly non-partisan but rigorously moral opinion was considered impolite. Now, along with anyone else who dares speak out, it is perfectly acceptable to attack religious figures for intervening on moral issues – Howard and Ruddock rip in to meddling priests regularly – but only if they disagree with you.

More conservative groups such as the Salvation Army have of course been silenced by accepting government money (the amount was roughly thirty pieces of silver as I recall) and being appointed to various positions of prestige and repute, and so naturally they barely object when misanthropic policy and rhetoric emerge.

When you look back and consider all of the things that have happened under Howard, it is hard to come to any conclusion other than that the churches in this country have buckled. Buckled under the weight of both their own corporate and legal obsessions as well as under the weight of knowing that any attempt at mobilisation might result in rejection by their rather listless, self-absorbed and – dare I say it? – well-to-do flocks.

It is a truly mystifying thing – as a public voice the church has rendered itself quite ineffectual on championing things that really mattered to Jesus Christ – poverty, the sick, social justice. Whenever there is a sustained effort to change something, where is the most concentrated promotional energy directed?

Judging by the press at least, superficial squabbles on gay communion or consecration, opening or closing injection rooms, banning films that nobody watches, setting up factions in ugly power plays (the Jensen clique, anyone?). The usual tedious list.

The point of all this? If, as you fear, Australia and other Western countries are heading anywhere near a new structure of cryptofascist (there’s that word again), populist right wing government, you can be reasonably sure that on current form it is unlikely you will receive much comfort from a coalition of churches.

You might get some sexy copy from a few Uniting Church ratbags and Peter Costello’s evil other half Tim, but largely the motivation will be limp, the campaign impotent and the end result best not thought about.

In this respect, interestingly, the US differs in that a dominant coalition of churches wields enormous power and that power usually translates into hard line Republican votes.

Effective counter-measures, you ask? How about this: if you’re a journalist, go straight to the top. Start by targeting those holier-than-thou MPs who form cross-party faith caucuses. Get them on the record on any issue of import, then ask the local minister of religion for each individual for a response on their celebrity parishioners’ Christian values. Then compare. Then publish.

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Jaan Ranniko in Newtown, Sydney

What to do in a situation where not only does it appear that the Liberal party would be delighted to concentrate power amongst obvious cronies and sneer at criticism, but where the alterative Labor party is so shallow it’s only “credible alternative” has been Kim Beazley, an incoherent bedwetter with the vision of a used car salesman? (If you think that sounds harsh then ask the Tampa detainees for their opinion.)

When we see both ends of the political spectrum fragmenting into Greens and One Nation parties while the preferential system of vote counting still leads to an unrepresentative choice between two “centrist” corporate-fed of career politicians out of touch with and indifferent to the wishes of their constituents, should we call the ACCC?

Maybe we could look across the Tasman at the proportional representation arrangements established there. Maybe such an arrangement would better represent what is happening in Australia amongst the body politic? If most of us can only be thankful for the existence of the Senate for providing a check against the will of the government elected by the preferential system, we should consider extending such an influence into the lower house.

I am no expert on the machinations of proportional representation, but from what I can see they now have a stronger voice for their smaller parties, that kind of result here could go a long way towards forcing the major parties away from the bidding of their corporate pay masters and towards the will of the people.

The energies that have to date been devoted to a republic would be better channelled into improving the brass tacks of how our system of democratic representation functions. Someone needs to get our Jefferson off the beach, off the spliff and in front of a desk.

What would be required? A petition to force a referendum? How could the people force a referendum on such an issue? I’m game, what should we do?

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Meagan Phillipson

In the midst of chastising you for an opinion expressed about Australia’s relationship with the U.N, Tom Shanahan admonished that you should be “a little positive about the man who allows you to write this rubbish without being hurled in jail”.

Neither you nor I, Margo, have anything to be grateful to Howard for. He does not wave a magic wand and grant the public the privilege to speak without being thrown into gaol. Rather, it is Howard who should be grateful to the citizens of Australia for giving him the power he has.

That power, thank goodness, is a transitory power lasting only until the next government is entrusted to lead this country through the process of democratic election.

As for Howard wanting to withdraw from the United Nations, while he has not said so in such explicit terms, it would be fair to say the actions of the Howard government have spoken on many occasions louder than words. Even though it would be foolhardy in the extreme to divorce the United Nations and a move Howard would never consider, there is a observable shift away from the kind of multilateral action the U.N represents and towards the kind of unilateralism championed by the Bush administration.

This is clear from the reticent attitude towards the UNHCR and its report into mandatory detention, the alliance with America in the War on Terror, the more recent decision to send peacekeepers to the Solomon Islands and last week’s Alexander Downer speech, where he waxed lyrical about coalitions of the willing to deal with regional issues quickly rather going through the UN.

And I don’t think the U.N failed over Iraq. Indeed, the organisation’s darkest hour in terms of diplomacy was paradoxically also its finest. The U.N acted as a truly multilateral entity. It did not bend to the demands of two of the biggest member states, but stood firmly by the position that the inspectors needed more time before any decisions were made on military intervention. Many, including myself, have criticised the U.N in the past for being overly influenced by the passing interests of U.S foreign policy. Not so much anymore.

Considering the continued ascendancy of sovereignty, the decision to intervene militarily is not one to be taken lightly or without the full facts. The Security Council sensed this and acted accordingly. History, as they say, has thus far proven the best judge of the rightness of this tactic. Questions about the accuracy of intelligence used to justify the Iraqi war, a continued abject failure to find any WMDs and the realisation that rebuilding Iraq will be a long and more arduous task than first anticipated, all continue to condemn the actions of the coalition of the willing.