G�day. There�s an interesting vibe in Australian politics post the Venus phenomenon, eh? Webdiary�s Queens Birthday entry as we ponder our past and consider our future, is on the clash of Garrett and the Bush boys, by Webdiarists.
Harry Heidelberg suggests this Oils song as Labor’s election theme, from the album �Blue Sky Mining�.
ONE COUNTRY
Who’d like to change the world, who wants to shoot the curl
Who gets to work for bread, who wants to get ahead
Who hands out equal rights, who starts and ends that fight
And not not rant and rave, or end up a slave
Who can make hard won gains, fall like the summer rain
Now every man must be, what his life can be
So don’t call, me, the tune, I will walk away
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Who want’s to please everyone, who says it all can be done
Still sit up on that fence, no-one I’ve heard of yet
Don’t call me baby, don’t talk in maybes
Don’t talk like has-beens, sing it like it should be
Who laughs at the nagging doubt, lying on a neon shroud
Just gotta touch someone, I want to be
So don’t…
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(One country one, country one country)
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Who wants to sit around, turn it up turn it down
Only a man can be, what his life can be
One vision, one people, one landmass, we are defenceless, we have a lifeline
One ocean, one policy, seabed lies, one passion, one movement, one instant
One difference, one lifetime, one understanding
Transgression, redemption, one island, our placemat, one firmament
One element, one moment, one fusion, yes and one time
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Webdiarist Peter Best in Sydney is gloomy – heh Peter, play the song! Peter wrote:
In my darker hours I fear that Australians have dumbly accepted the replacement of old-fashioned values like honesty and kindness with the more thrusting business virtues of aggression, greed and mendacity. After all, the money-changers have swarmed into the Temple, thrown out the priests, sold off the icons and erased most of the Commandments while our Prime Minister beams approval.
Can he really regard himself as a Christian? It seems so, but these days the Christians in Washington and Canberra don’t seem to be reading the New Testament. Rather, the old testament looks like their text, with its vengeful God, its tribal bloodbaths and its focus on the Israelites.
I was bemoaning the flight from conscience to a friend when he raised a worrying point. Could it be that Howard hasn’t brought out the worst in us, but merely let our nature assert itself once more after an uncharacteristic period of compassion and tolerance that lasted from Whitlam’s election until Keating’s defeat? Perhaps we’re mostly greedy, brutal racists, relieved to again be allowed to behave as we wish with nobody – no Governor-general, no Prime Minister, no sporting hero – to reproach us or set an example.
Depressing, eh? But if the people can be swayed from empathy and social compassion to greedy self-interestedness by the exhortations and example of their community leaders surely there’s hope yet?
Mark Latham isn’t another Gough Whitlam, but he’s not another John Howard either. Howard has presided over administrations unrivalled in their corruption of parliament and of the national discourse; ministerial accountability has vanished, Jesuitical weasel-words like “core” and “non-core” have been thrust at us with a straight face, journalists buy every dummy pass that’s thrown and have no idea where the ball is any more.
I think – I fervently hope – that Australians can tell the difference between someone who “wasn’t told” and someone who lied, between a promise and a betrayal, between a threat to the nation and a threat to the coalition’s electoral prospects.
A few years ago we learned that there’s only so much destruction of our society the Australian people will tolerate. Remember Jeff Kennett?
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RECOMMENDATIONS
JR: The Bush misleader website, �a daily chronicle of bush administration distortion.
Scott Burchill: Going to War Not Worth It, More Voters Say for the latest Americans� mood on Iraq, and ZNET for Chomsky�s �Doctrines And Visions: Who Is To Run The World, And How?� (search under Noam Chomsky):
�There is a curious performance under way right now among Western commentators, who are solemnly debating whether the Bush administration downgraded the “war on terror” in favour of its ambitions in Iraq. The only surprising aspect of the revelations of former Bush administration officials that provoked the debate is that anyone finds them surprising – particularly right now, when it is so clear that by invading Iraq the administration did just that: knowingly increased the threat of terror to achieve their goals in Iraq.
Jozef Imrich: Is US like Germany of the ’30s?: �Has the combination of the World Trade Center attack and a president who believes his instructions come from God unleashed the dark side of the American heritage?�
Carl Cranstone: Bush’s Erratic Behavior Worries White House Aides
Ian Read: For you and your readers’ information, the Pentagon Torture Memo that Ashcroft refuses to release can be downloaded at what really happened
Adam Fenderson in Melbourne: Thank you for helping bring the issue of oil depletion to a wider audience (Oils ain’t just oils, they’re to die for and Deputy PM confirms oil crisis). Readers in Melbourne are invited to the screening of The END of SUBURBIA, a film about Peak Oil, on June 29.
Darren Urquhart: Have a look at Coup D’etat: The Real Reason Tenet and Pavitt Resigned from the CIA on June 3rd and 4th, Bush, Cheney Indictments in Plame Case Looming, by Michael C. Ruppert. It seemed pretty way-out until I read the 5 preceding articles he refers to in paragraph 5. He has been on the money for some time.
Mark Kelly, Townsville: A few tenacious souls on the ground in Iraq have been working to record local civilian injuries and fatalities during the ‘clean’ war. It is depressing. I just hope humanity in the UK, US and here exercises a collective democratic statement during 2004 and sweeps out the ‘hear no evil, see no evil’ monkeys that are presently ‘governing’ us.
A federal public servant: For those who haven�t read it, please read Al Gore�s on May 26. I have taken a lot of heart from the speech – it really is one of the great commentaries about the Bush’s administration handling of the Iraq conflict. It was run in full on Bruce Springsteen’s website.
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THE BUSH/HOWARD, LATHAM/GARRETT SHOW
Peter Woodforde in Canberra: “Having finished with Mark Latham, will the Bush White House now turn its guns on Play School? I mean, poor old John Anderson can’t be expected to do the War on Lesbians by himself, can he?”
Mike Lyvers in Queensland: “Mark Latham praised Peter Garrett for his “passion” and “commitment” to politics. Then it turns out Garrett hasn’t even voted in 10 years! Such “passion,” such “commitment” indeed! I had a good laugh out of this incident, however sad for the Labor party.”
Michelle Wright: Re Peter Garrett, I think every election has its own special twist. If a person who has not bothered to vote for 10 years is now motivated enough to run for parliament, and if people like me are motivated enough to actively agitate for change, then maybe this is the “twist” and “energy” of election 2004.
Nick Porecki: Did Peter vote or didn’t he? Who are we to believe – poor little whingeing John or Peter Garrett? Who has a track record of lying through his teeth at every opportunity? It’s your word against Peters word John – why should I believe you?
Steve: You suggested in Howard’s 2004 Tampa: director George Bush that the election could be as early as 7th August. My neighbour studies political science and history and told me about two weeks ago that the Libs have already booked their standard election night haunt in Sydney for August 7.
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Shannon Roy
As I was (until recently) an enrolled elector in P Garrett’s “safe seat”, a friend recently asked me if I’d vote for him. I would vote for him for two reasons:
1. The Labor party needs talent. I have seen Garrett (in my former life as an employee at his music company) run a fractious band and actually achieve consensus among a large group (Oils were a BIG band) of musicians and label drones, people generally noted for their individuality and strong dislike for authority or “toeing the line”. He has leadership and consensus building skills that are top-class, a sharp mind, and a clear voice. His weakness would be that people perceive him as a screamer; actually he’s a principled compromiser and that’s the soul of a good politician. It’s the unprincipled compromisers that get us into trouble.
2. I long ago resigned myself to voting for the party that was “most likely to be the party I would feel happy about voting for” – therefore I would vote for whomever Labor selected in that seat. I have MANY bones to pick with Labor policies past and present, but they are FAR more likely to do things I want than the other side.
So let’s talk about the “other side”. Unlike many I think John Howard is a phenomenal leader who has led Australia extremely well. I never voted for him, or his party, and I know we all secretly want to follow our parties like football teams and scream from the stands for the blood of the other side whatever the evidence, but let’s just consider the evidence for a moment.
1. We shouldn’t have gone to Iraq for reasons that should be clear to all but the screaming supporters of the other football team, but now that we’ve participated in bombing it to hell, destroying its infrastructure and dropping it into massive danger of erupting into all out chaos, pulling the troops out and saying “f� you” to the Iraqis is morally bankrupt. We erred, as a country. So we must put it right. Otherwise we’re not worth spit.
2. Remember, John Howard is gun laws (after the NSW experience Labor would never have done the same thing); John Howard is East Timor (after Keating’s comprehensive rimming of Suharto they never would have gone); John Howard is fiscal austerity in the good times which means Australia survived the Asian crisis which would have left a Labor government with a mountain of debt and no way out.
3. BUT John is also asylum seekers, which although a poison chalice which kills everyone who sips it, does need to be handled ethically. Remember Crean’s position was also mandatory detention. Remember that similar regimes exist all around the world and compared to many others ours is humane and generous. But it’s still wrong, and this is one area I think Labor could have done better, and hopefully will do better. And Howard’s other negative things, too, some fairly on his shoulders, and some, like uni fees, just a small step away from what Labor introduced in their long run (I marched against HECS, for example, which blind Freddy could see would lead to full fees).
Australians know all these things, which is why John keeps being elected, football mentality of the general voter or no. He is the most powerful Australian politician of our times. He has managed to make phenomenal positive changes in our economic life (for a small over governed economy like ours, the GST was the right move and Keating knew it). That and a massive lack of talent in Labor ranks have made it hard voting in Australia. We’ve two centre parties, and only one has had any real mandate in the “conservative capitalist” backlash that was the 90s.
Now we’re in a new era, the “terror” era, maybe Labor should have a go again.
One last thing: the idiotic bleating that’s going on at the moment about the US Alliance being on the table in this election is just that, idiotic. It’s a strong alliance because Australia and the US need each other. We need our “great and powerful”. They need their large, immobile aircraft carrier (we call it Australia) in the middle of the Pacific/Indian oceans and a politically stable place to handle the information nexus of this hemisphere (Pine Gap et al). There’s no way those two things are going away.
Don’t make the mistake of taking George W(MD) Bush at his word. That would simply compound the foolishness of having done it twice already.
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P. Doyle
I have too much time on my hands, so I’m familiar with some of your writings. I can’t remember agreeing with a single word, but there is something strangely appealing about reading your nonsense.
I suppose it�s not so much the nonsense itself, but rather the place at which the nonsense resides. That is, how long will Fairfax allow such desperately silly and biased writings to continue and or increase? Is the Sydney Morning Herald immune to embarrassment?
Let me be more specific, starting with Stage set for David and Goliath battle. I think most readers immediately identify and scoff at such gratuitous lunges for underdog status, I know I did. I think most regard such lunges for underdog status, at least in relation to a political contest, as a byword. (Oh, and by the way, David was a conservative.)
I skipped passed your first, second and third paragraphs quite quickly. Although I did laugh at the usage of inverted comma’s girding your own thoughts. And I was delightfully baffled as you managed to make the astronomically significant Venus crossing sound so jingoistic. “Abstract thinkers” was also noted with a grin. (In 4000 odd years of “peace and happiness” have the Europeans ever gone a decade without an armed conflict? If history is any guide, I’ll hang my hat on Mars).
But the first real little Margo surprise came soon after, when you called the NSW Labor “machine”, corrupt! The mind boggles, as would their’s, as should your editors. What a hide you have. Not an eyebrow raised I bet, as you slipped in another monumentally cheap slur.
You describe Bush as having dumped on Latham, with “brutally explicit threats”. Again would you not be better served, by being less ridiculous (or deceitful)? Have a second look. How would you describe these comments made by Bush “It would be a disastrous decision for the leader of a great country like Australia to say that we’re pulling out”; “It would dispirit those who love freedom in Iraq.� Margo, could any fair, reasonable, or dare I say, sane individual, describe such comments as being “brutally explicit threats”? (Margo: I was referring to the threats by Armitage post Bush.)
Having already consumed more rubbish then any SMH reader should ever have to stomach, I lamentably continued. So please help me now Margo. What should I do next? I’ve just read “Howard is confident he can scare us into voting for him again out of deliberately, cynically engineered fear.”
Of course, I’ve encountered irony and hypocrisy before. But not to such an extent. I’m perplexed. Do I laugh, weep, or waste a few more minutes typing.
Actually, perhaps neither. I think I’ll wait until the election is one and lost, before weeping with laughter and finishing this e-mail.
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Brad Spence in Newcastle
While I read your column every chance I get, I am reluctant to write to you as my thoughts can not be expressed with the same effectiveness of your other writers. However I have followed the comments of the US administration over recent weeks with some alarm.
Below is a copy of the thoughts I emailed to The Australian on the subject after reading a Paul Kelly story. I am not a gifted writer but I can not sit by and watch what happening to the media without trying to express my concern.
“Over the years The Australian finally lifted itself from the self-serving muck that saw it run the Labor Government out of office in the 1970s and hence became the balanced national newspaper we needed. Now when we need you the most, you have reverted to type.
�Whether or not Labor�s Iraqi policy is correct, America cannot treat the alliance, our economy and independence with such arrogance and manipulations. Is the alliance and the FTA (the worth of which is already under serious question) reliant on our 800 odd troops staying in Iraqi and not electing a Labor government?
When did we stop being an ally and become a subservient guest in the presence of the almighty? Why are you not asking these questions? Why not challenge both Armitage and Howard?
How could you claim that removing 800 troops 6 months after the handover of power would recruit more people to the terrorist cause than what America has been doing to the population! That is folly at best and a misrepresentation of the truth at worst.
We need the Australian to expose the truth for the benefit of Australia, not aimlessly follow the line of an overseas power to appease the boss.
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Guido Tresoldi, an ALP member in Melbourne
Howard has tried to find a new ‘Tampa’ for some time now. But in my opinion unlike Tampa, what Howard with the help of the USA administration is doing is a double edged sword for him.
I don’t think any Australians would like anyone to threaten or blackmail them with threats of �behave or else�. While we resent powerful friends telling us what to do. we tend to run to them when we feel threatened. The only way Howards’ strategy will work is if we feel scared enough to want protection. This situation reminded me of when I was a child in Italy.
In Italy the late 70s early 80s were called ‘anni di piombo’, years of lead, where the red brigades and neo-fascist groups used violence to unbalance the state. In those years it was not uncommon for conspiracy theories to abound. One of the main ones was when in the 70s the Communist Party was on the verge of victory. This would have had huge geopolitical implications in the Cold War, considering Italy was a very important member of NATO.
Before the election campaign there was a spate of terrorist attacks, which were attributed to ‘communist terrorists’ although the red brigades did not claim to be responsible for them. The conspiracy theory was that the terrorism was sponsored by the USA in order to scare the populace to vote for the Christian Democrats (something that did happen).
This set me thinking about what George Bush said about Latham’s policies. It is interesting to note how Australia, a country that really the USA has not much interest in, has become a very important symbolic partner in Iraq.
If Australia withdrew its troops, it would have a really small impact on the ground, but it would have a major impact psychologically.
Now, if Howard is really looking down the gurgler, what would swing votes back to him (I’m not suggesting he would ever contemplate this). A little explosion somewhere in Australia? It would not need to hurt anyone. Anywhere in Canberra on a weekend could not hurt anyone even if it tried, considering the flight out of the place on a Friday night. (I’m not suggesting he would ever contemplate this).
This, helped by the pro-Howard commentariat emphasising that Latham would be too risky in such a dangerous time, would do the trick. What a Tampa opportunity, and the American neo-con administration would still have their man of steel.
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Sacha Blumen in Sydney
I often enjoy reading your articles, and Howard’s 2004 Tampa: director George Bush was no exception. I’m glad at least one person in the media believes that truth and reality should be the basis for governments’ actions, and that they should be truthful with the population.
Unfortunately these self-evident notions seem to be foreign to Howard et al and it seems that he and his mates are prepared, as you state, to win at all costs – that seems to be all they care about. Stuff telling the Australian people the truth of their actions, inactions or the motives behind them, let alone attempt to have the best possible policies.
I was distraught at the idea, before the 2001 federal election, that Howard could win that election by running a campaign based on fear and people’s underlying prejudices and hatreds. I thought (and still think) that it was shocking that they should run such a campaign – and to my mind it was enough to morally disqualify them from running the country. Kim Beazley was correct when he called them “a gang of thugs” after the election. A shame he wasn’t so blunt beforehand.
Often I wonder what I can do to help get rid of this dreadful mob. I really don’t know. At the moment I’m trying to finish my PhD thesis, which is challenging enough, and I don’t have much time. I gain some satisfaction from writing e-mails to federal ministers demanding reasons for their latest appalling statment, but the responses, if any, are usually unsatisfactory.
Sometimes I despair – why can’t we at least have people with good hearts in politics – that would be a massive improvement on the current federal government. I don’t usually agree with conservative politicians, but it would be much better if conservatives with good intentions and good hearts went into the conservative parties so there could be proper debates about ideas and policies – not these so-called debates often apparently spurred by the desire to appeal to prejudice and fear.
I believe that political life would be grately improved if the ideas floating around it were informed by imagination and open minds. Do you think that’s possible? (Margo: Yes, if we make it so.)
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Steve Turbit, ALP member
It is pretty obvious what Howard is up to here. He is trying to use the Americans to help get him reelected, and as usual he will stop at NOTHING! He’s even got the Governor-General in on the act.
However, I think this one may backfire on him. If you look at the ninemsn poll, 67% of the respondents think that the United States is getting too heavily involved in our domestic politics. Australians don’t like anyone, but particularly the Yanks, butting in and telling us what to do an how to run our affairs. This is a big gamble by Howard – it may pay off but I really don’t think so.
I think Howard’s tactic is to set up a number of fronts and hope that one or more will pay off. You have the disgraceful Medicare propaganda ads paid for by us, the huge budget bribes, the gay marriage bill, the Auslink bribe, and the Iraq tactics that he’s getting help with from the Americans just to name a few. I think Howard is running out of ideas, and I think he’s WORRIED – seriously. He’s starting to look a little more than desperate, and that is a good sign. The shoulder twitch is back. There is still a long way to go and anything could happen, but I think we might be starting to see the beginning of the end. The important thing at this point is not to drop the guard and underestimate him.
One of my friends commented a couple of weeks ago that he can see some comparisons with the current Howard Government and the dying days of the Keating Government. I can see his point. All the messages that the Government is trying to send to the electorate are being drowned out by Ministerial scandals and stuff-ups along with more bad news from Iraq.
Also, like Howard in 1996, Latham is showing incredible tenacity. He won’t back down, and actually I think he’s starting to prevail on Iraq. Once he makes his mind up on something he sticks to it through thick and thin. This makes him look strong and decisive. And he refuses to lose his cool.
And for those who choose to remember, the economy wasn’t in trouble in 1996 either. It had recovered and was putting along quite sweetly. Keating and Hawke survived bad economy elections, and I actually think that people feel better about ejecting a government at a time of economic certainty rather than uncertainty. So don’t think a strong economy will keep the Government alive.
I hope I am proven to be right. What do you think? (Margo: I think Labor will always lose an election campaign on race or the American Alliance, unless the leader is brave enough to do something seriously special, and damn the risk.)
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Sasha Marker in Sydney
I am concerned and alarmed at the suspicious lack of response in the media regarding the impending increase of US military personnel and equipment on Australian shores. Coupled with the story in the SMH about the massive US troop withdrawal from South Korea, it might be possible to put two and two together and conclude that the US military mean to set up shop permanently in Australia, whether we want them to or not. And, I have to wonder if our government signed and sealed this bargain when it prostituted itself to the US for their war on terror.
I first heard about American military designs for a greater military presence in Australia in 1997. My ex-spouse was a lowly NCO (with a security clearance) and it seemed to be a fairly common topic of conversation among the Marines that northern Australia was the preferred location for another US military installation.
The Marines think of Australia quite fondly and Waltzing Matilda is played every morning in Camp Pendleton, San Diego at 7:30am as it is the official hymn for the 1st Marine Corp division stationed there. They would love to come. I remember laughing and telling my ex that no Australian government would be stupid enough to allow it. Alas, we have finally descended to the necessary levels of stupidity.
After living in East Asia (Korea and Japan), I’ve seen and heard first hand some of the problems associated with having a permanent US military presence (outside of spy bases) in a foreign country and I am appalled that the Australia government would even consider it. No amount of profit will ever be worth it. With the Australian press turning the other cheek to this, I was just wondering if there is any sense of collective outrage somewhere or is it just me?