Category Archives: politics

All of the people, some of the time

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by Climate Change, Media, politics • Tags: , , , , , , ,

“Mission Accomplished” read the sign, supposedly put there, so the story was told, by grateful and admiring sailors (rather in the way Roman people would celebrate a triumph for the Emperor) to praise the wisdom and Commander in Chiefness of their great leader. And yes, there he was, stepping from a navy jet, as if he had just personally flown the last mission in Iraq. He wore the armour of a great warrior, the uniform of a fighter pilot, walking, though, it must be said, a little awkwardly as if the trousers didn’t quite fit (or as if he hadn’t quite shed his Texas cowboy persona). Never mind, there he was, walking forward to receive the cheers of the worshipping sailors.

It was an ideal war ending, could almost have been made in Hollywood, starring Ronald Reagan [In fact it was, as it turned out, scripted, stage managed, directed, as if it was a Hollywood movie and the sailors mere extras]. But there we were, a lighting fast war, the leader of the Free World triumphant after a few short weeks, just as the neocon war chorus had promised. Boo sucks to those wishy washy liberals who had protested about the war. We showed those limp-wristed lady men French cheese-eating surrender monkeys etc. When America decides to conquer a country by god they conquer it, no messing around. And if our glorious leader, Emperor George, decides to conquer some more, well then, you feeling lucky, punks?

It was all dutifully filmed and reported by an unquestioning Press, flown out to the carrier for the purpose of recording George Bush’s date with destiny. It was a fake from start to finish, but no one thought to question the spectacle or the sentiments. Nor indeed to question whether the war was indeed “over”. It would be ten more years of mayhem before American troops began going home. And hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis were there to make a mockery of “mission accomplished” had anyone been counting.

But it was a while before people began to question the reality behind the illusion.

It turned out later, if I remember correctly, the aircraft carrier was anchored not far from California, not offshore from the Gulf. The sign had been made by the Bush PR team, not the sailors. And so on. The whole thing had been, a fiction movie. If Ronald Reagan thought that a movie he had once been in was real life, then so now did George.

But it worked for a while, this stunt. Worked well enough and long enough to form a model for conservative politicians everywhere I think. As long as it looks good and sounds vaguely plausible, the media will report the spectacle and message exactly as you want them to. And if anyone wants to ask questions later? Well, yesterday’s news, who cares?

It marked something of a rise in these kind of political stunts. Oh politicians of all persuasions had long kissed babies, launched ships, turned up at sporting events and the like. But the Mission Accomplished moment gave new impetus and ideas. There were a number of lessons to be learnt, and conservative politicians learnt them very quickly. First lesson was to actually take the trouble to make the event like, well, like a movie. Get the setting right, the props right, the clothing right, the extras right, the words right. The media will only need to set up the cameras in the spot marked x and the event will unfold before their lenses. Second, make the story simple, one event, one message, and make it fit the narrative the media are already familiar with, indeed have already been promoting. And third, if you do those things, the media will not investigate the reality behind the event. The illusion you have presented them, like a stage magician, will be presented as reality. In effect you will have turned the whole of the mainstream media into the promotion arm of your political party. And promotion you would once have paid a lot of money for now reaches the audience free of charge.

In the last couple of years in Australia the Liberal Party, under Tony Abbott, Australia’s GW Bush, have developed this process into the kind of mass production previously used only for consumer goods. Almost daily, as if in a continuous election campaign, Abbott’s spin doctors arrange a photo opportunity. He has decided that, having created the narrative, with the help of the MSM, involving a scare campaign over the looming price on carbon (or as he calls it, the great big unimaginably huge toxic carbon tax which will ruin us all and end Australian civilisation as we know it), the photo ops would be used to keep hammering away at this. So there we are, day after day – here a factory will close, there a cake shop, a fish shop, a mine, a whole city (about to be wiped off the map) – and there is Tony, wearing, as awkwardly as Bush in flight gear, a mining helmet, a white coat, goggles. There he is driving a truck (license specially obtained), eating a cake, gutting a fish. And then, as the cameras continue to roll on this made for tv movie, comes the speech when a sometimes sorrowful, sometimes angry, Mr Abbott will denounce the prospect of doing anything whatsoever about climate change, and fore-shadowing (sometimes, in a strange time warp, describing things that have apparently already happened under a carbon price yet to come into effect) the doom of the enterprise and the salt of the earth workers who work there, not to mention their Liberal-supporter boss standing at his side who may say a few additional words before filing for bankruptcy or leaping from a skyscraper.

And sure enough, night after night, grateful reporters, their work done for them, and grateful news bulletin producers, ditto, run this footage unchanged, unchecked, unchallenged on the nightly news and the following day’s breakfast shows.

Running in parallel, and from the same premise, has been a similar technique by lobby groups on the Right. This is the “petition” or press release from “expert group” approach. The notorious “Oregon Petition” by climate deniers seems to have been the first major example of this. Set up a phony “Institute” (this has also been a path frequently followed), set up a “petition” denying climate change is happening, and establish an apparently real “qualification” for those signing it. Publicise it in places where likely deniers will see it. In this case the signers were supposed to be “scientists”, which enabled the Oregon people to later say that thousands of “scientists” didn’t believe in global warming. The media, always out for controversy, and unable or unwilling to check such things, then simply provided an amplifier for the claims of the “petition”, and this established the proposition that the science of climate change was “unsettled” the “debate” still proceeding, “two sides” to the question.

If the media had done the most elementary checking they would have found that the “Institute” was a bit like the fake shopfronts in a western movie. And that the signatories were anyone who had done anything remotely like science at some kind of university level at some time. Even so, given the huge number of science graduates in America, this motley crew represented only a very tiny percentage of them. And in addition, few of them had done any kind of science related to climate, and none were active climate scientists. The whole petition was like a fake town in a cowboy movie. Yet on and on it went, demolished online by many people but not the MSM, and still quoted from time to time. And so a successful model for others.

One aspect of it has indeed been even more widely used – the shielding of the real identity, affiliation, ideology, and therefore motivation, of the people making the claim (eg in this case the headline “Libertarian, neoconservative, right wing Republican group opposes action on climate change” has less impact by far than the claim “Scientists oppose science of climate change”). Religious groups in particular have found that while the public will discount what they say if it is obviously religiously motivated, have become adept at not mentioning religion but of claiming some other identity such as “social researcher” when commenting on topics such as same sex marriage, stem cell research, or abortion. The media have been absolutely happy to accept such wolf in sheep’s clothing commenters.

Last week in Australia, both the political stunt and the false flag approaches to pushing politics further to the Right were in full view. But both for a change failed, not because the MSM saw through the fakery, but because the internet did and quickly reacted.

First the petition approach. Bursting on to the media was the announcement that “doctors” opposed same sex marriage because it would inevitably greatly damage any children being raised by a same sex couple and because of the enormous health risks in such a relationship. Wow, eh, DOCTORS are saying this. With evidence, obviously, must be. Not just the usual arguments by gay people, politicians, religious groups, this is DOCTORS. And so the media ran with the story, as usual, unchecked. Except that twitter started asking questions. Who were these doctors? And pretty quickly the thing unravelled. In the first place there were only 150 names, of some 70,000 GPs in Australia. Funny, very small number. Then it turned out the leader and organisers were based in a fundamentalist, evangelical church, and their “evidence” was quotes from evangelicals in America. And which had the usual anti-gay agenda of such groups. Next came the AMA, issuing a statement on behalf of the 70,000 GPs that this little group didn’t speak for anyone. So the whole facade crumbled, although our national broadcaster, ever eager to please, was still running it on a ticker the next day.

You’d think the media would check, wouldn’t you. But “Doctors oppose same sex marriage” has a more newsworthy sound than “Small group of religious fundamentalists, some of whom are doctors, oppose same sex marriage” does it not?

And shortly after came the second failure. Two of Abbott’s senior politicians, Eric Abetz (Libs leader in the Senate, a major party figure) and Kelly O’Dwyer decided to emulate their glorious leader. Couldn’t believe their luck I bet when a stunt fell ready made into their laps. Didn’t have to do anything, there it was, grass roots participation. See a shopkeeper in O’Dwyer’s electorate apparently told her that he was being forced to close his shop, was being ruined by this great big new tax from Julia Gillard, just as Abbott had said he would be. So the pair of pollies advised the media, and then turned up for the photo op. And even better, the poor shopkeeper, more in sorrow than in anger of course, had written on the shop window something like “Thanks a lot, Julia, closing down”. Time for the cameras, so the shopkeeper stood in front of his poor forlorn shop, flanked by the two pollies, guarding the bridge, shoulder to shoulder, against the red peril coming their way. MSM dutifully reported, unchecked, as they had reported all the other stunts.

But then a funny thing happened. People began asking (as Abetz and O’Dwyer should have done, but in their ideologically befuddled state did not), hang on Carbon Price hasn’t begun yet, and even when it does, how could it possibly affect an antiques dealer? Then someone who lived near the shop and knew it thought the story was a bit odd, and someone else checked out the web site of the business. It all unravelled, and this shopfront was revealed as yet another fake in a cowboy movie.

The real story went something like this. The Antiques dealer had two shops, close together. His main business was just down the road and was going strong. This shop had just been rented temporarily by him, and had been used to have a sale of excess stock from the business. That sale had been so successful that the shop was now empty and he no longer needed to rent it. The gig being up he then made a statement to the effect that yes indeed, that was the true situation, and he had set up this stunt just for a bit of a laugh, just for fun, nothing serious, can take a joke can’t you Julia? Etc.

Abetz and O’Dwyer were very quiet in the afternoon, and the story vanished. But without the internet and twitter the MSM would have simply taken this at face value, and left the public, yet again, with the vague feeling that the “carbon tax” was ruining people. Saw it, in the news, must be true, poor fellow.

Look, they were caught out on these occasions, the doctors and the politicians. But that won’t be the end of these stunts, and tricks, and, well, lies. They work too well, in the absence of real journalism, and indeed in the presence of a media that is happy to run with neo-conservative narratives.

So be aware, as you walk down the street, seeing the latest political stunt, or reading the latest press release, that you are walking down a street in a wild west movie, and nothing you are seeing is real. Stay alert.

Reality doesn’t bite

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by Climate Change, politics • Tags: , , , , , , ,

Has only just occurred to me that Karl Rove’s:

“The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” … “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

which I guess he applied in GW Bush’s time to the war, and economics, and law, and politics, and social matters, also applies to climate change denial.

The Heartland group and their Australian equivalents could say exactly what Rove said. They have absolutely no interest in the data on climate change. They simply ignore it or invent their own. Instead they create “new realities” through such activities as stealing and lying about emails, inventing fake petitions, or comparing climate scientists to mass murderers.

On the other hand, excellent sites like Skeptical Science and Real Climate scrupulously stay away from “politics”, deleting comments or parts of comments that make remarks about the politics or ideology of denialists. Or make rude remarks. They believe that they should stick purely to the science and nothing but the science, and the other side can do what they like, scientists will neither get down in the gutter nor fight politically. Eventually, they believe, reality will prevail. In the meantime the deniers are winning the battle by inventing their own reality and pursuing it relentlessly. Rather like “weapons of mass destruction” and the invasion of Iraq.

All of us will be left, in the ruins of a planet, to study what they have done.

Note – in case you couldn’t read it the lower line in the graphic is “A peer reviewed study by Swift (1729) found that only Irish climate scientists might have eaten babies and then only in times of famine or other incidents of a similar nature. Possibly (Climate scientist 2012)”

Twenty years a-growing

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by Education, politics • Tags: , , ,

When I left home, aged 20, circumstances didn’t allow me to take anything more than a suitcase of my clothes. My bedroom, mine since birth, was like one of those shells which crabs decorate as they carry them around. It was full of my life so far, books, drawings, train sets, sports gear, things my father had brought back from war, old school stuff. But I walked out, shed my shell, without a backward glance. I was eager for adventure, for life outside these four walls, this house, this family, eager to see what the world had in store for me. Adulthood was beckoning, imperiously, and I had to go.

Half a century on, I feel very differently of course. Want to have stern words with that young whippersnapper. It wasn’t the things so much that were important but the whole structure of family life I was leaving behind. And the psychological and emotional effects of twenty years a-growing (title of a book about an Irish childhood I’d been given). Without a backward glance, totally unaware that my much older self would look back with regret on what I was leaving behind – the comfort of familiar voices, shared history, common values, comfortable chairs, surroundings I could navigate with eyes shut. A stability which was going to be absent for quite a while as I tried to find my way bravely in a new world, where nothing was familiar. Oh, it hadn’t all been great, back home, we were a family with problems, and ups and downs like any other, but it was home, and it would take a while to find a new one.

Not unique? Of course not. We all go through this transition from youth to adult, one way and another. We all leave stuff behind. But looking around me now it seems far too many of us leave all behind. Every day there is news of bad behaviour by politicians, business leaders, unionists, sportsmen, of a kind that makes you want to have stern words, say “what would your parents think about this behaviour?”, “what would your grandparents think?”, “where did you leave the values you grew up with?”

But more than that. The country, Australia, I grew up in all those years ago, has itself changed immeasurably. The young Australia seems to have packed its bags, walked out the door of the old Australia (200 years a-growing), grabbing at a brave new world, leaving behind the baggage of fairness, equality, caring, mateship, anti-authoritarianism, mutual respect, honesty. Of course it hadn’t been perfect in the past, the treatment of women, indigenous people, migrants and the environment, were nothing to write home about. But we have lost more than we have gained. Think again, old country, look homeward.

Note – have told much of my story under “Dream” tab above. My family stuff starts about half way (say at “Leaving from Liverpool”).

Himself is his own dungeon

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by politics • Tags: , ,

Much discussion, both at his trial and in the wider world, about whether Breivik is “mad or sane”. I am guessing that at least part of it is a technical issue related to his sentencing. Seems incomprehensible to me, but if I understood correctly the maximum Norwegian sentence for “murder while sane” is 20 years. And it seems not to matter whether you killed one person or 77 people, you don’t even get a couple of sentences one after the other, 20 years is your lot. Now if I am right then all you can say is the law in Norway is a ass. On the other hand I assume that if found to be insane then Breivik gets locked up for rest of life or at least until he is found to be sane again. This is all baffling. No of course I don’t agree with death penalty, it has no part in civilised countries, but a justice system that doesn’t see Breivik in jail for life (like the comparable Martin Bryant in Australia) is a busted system. Perhaps they thought such an event could never happen in Norway, but they must have had serial killers occasionally?

But let’s leave that aside. I’m guessing that a twenty year sentence for Breivik will see Norwegians marching in the streets, but that is their business. Instead I wanted to consider the broader question of sane/insane irrespective of the law. At one level the question itself is insane. Here is a creature who blows up innocent passers-by on a city street; then goes to island and shoots dead dozens of innocent young people one after the other, hunting them down without mercy, in a scene too horrible to think about for long; then pleads “self-defence” in court! Stark raving mad, just on the evidence of those three broad facts.

But that doesn’t take us very far, really. Think about it. There are plenty of insane people who commit murder, no question. All kinds of childhood circumstances, sexual aberration, brain malfunction or injury, bullying or other personal negative interaction, can lead to single or serial or mass murders. No problem recognising, say, the Moors murders, or the House of Horrors, or Jeffrey Dahmer, or indeed the man who suddenly kills his aged parents, or his children, as being the results of all kinds of mental problems. But that’s not what we have here, nothing like it, so do we need some other concept of “insane”?

At least since around 1900, when the very nasty Anarchists were in full flight, there have been small groups of people all over the world, fanatical light gleaming in eyes, so utterly convinced of the rightness of ideology or religion that they were happy, more than happy, to kill any who disagreed with them, or who merely didn’t recognise their Truth. Worse, their hatreds were so strong as to include those of a different ethnic group (to their own tightly defined one), a different skin colour, different language, different political sympathy. All helps to fuel the urge to kill these people who are different, who are, must be, less than you, less, indeed, than human. So shoot them, blow them up with bombs, crash planes full of them, fly planes indeed into tall buildings full of them. Kill them, men, women, children, kill them all. It is an ethnic cleansing in reverse, where a small group of believers would happily, if they could, cleanse the rest of the world of those different to themselves.

These groups arise like poisonous mushrooms on a dung heap. They may spend some years whipping up each other’s hatreds, they may launch straight into bomb making. Some, like the Anarchists, eventually, fade away, but there will always be another take their place. You know them. Oh they may wear different badges, espouse different causes, claim different outrageous provocations, but they are all one, brothers in arms. They are the IRA (and still, heaven help us, the “Real IRA”) and the UDA, ETA, Bader-Meinhof, Al-Quaeda, American Militias, the MNLF, the LeT, Taliban, Ustashi, elements of the Tea Party, Shining Path, the Neo-Nazis in so many countries, Nepalese Maoists, anti-abortionists, the KKK, and so on. And beyond them are the apparently non-ideological killing-spree people. I used to think people like Martin Bryant and the Columbine killers were different to the terrorists. Descriptions of the killers at the Bombay train station, smiling as they hunted down and killed innocent people sound no different to the murderers roaming the school halls at Columbine (and many others) or picking off tourists at Port Arthur. The common thread is the love of killing, and a fake sense of grievance (“bullying” in school, or being sacked from a workplace, or receiving “poor” service, are no different to excuses related to religion, or migrants “stealing jobs”, or some distant historical claim to land).

Once, and still in most cases, formal terrorist groups were close knit cells or network of cells in one part of a country, and shared a common specific aim of gaining some territory, say. These days with internet communications, individuals who share an ideology of hatred and a love of killing, can get in contact with like minded individuals and groups all over the world. The hatred can ferment in the suburban bedroom to the glow of the computer screen, and ideas can be gained about killing methods and tactics.

Which brings us back to Breivik. He fits comfortably into this framework, does he not? Is he insane? Of course he is, but then the members of all these groups are insane. I guess the only question would be whether he was more insane than the people blowing up a nightclub in Bali, or an office building in Oklahoma, or a shop in Belfast, or a school in Afghanistan. No, still not seeing it.

An uncomfortable fact to ponder. All of those groups and individuals (with the possible exception of the school shooters) have been, are, supported by some, often many other people (even, astonishingly, Martin Bryant, defended as a victim by the gun lobby, pretending he was set up in order to bring in more gun control). However bad the massacres, however many innocent people die horribly, supporters will argue the cause is just, the “war” must be fought.

Which brings us back to Breivik again. Desperately arguing he is not insane, that he was at war with these children, that he was at war with “multiculturalism”, that he acted in self-defence and so on. That is, pretending that he was some kind of “soldier” in a legitimate cause, although, when he stopped hunting down screaming, crying, terrified, unarmed children and shooting them dead, he quickly demanded to surrender to the armed policemen who were finally arriving. No gunfight with armed men for Mr Breivik.

He needs to be declared for what he is, insane, and locked up, incommunicado, to rot in prison until he dies a forgotten old man. So do they all. There needs to be a clear statement from the civilised people of the world that these murderous thugs are all psychopaths, sociopaths, whatever, but mad. No glorious causes, no pretend flags and uniforms, no war language, just insane. And each one in turn, locked up like Breivik for ever. No noble speeches, no martyrdom, no communication with deluded followers and supporters. Just a declaration of insanity. A clear message to supporters – you are following madmen.

Might help, a bit.

Milton “Comus”

he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts benighted, walks under the midday sun; Himself in his own dungeon

A voter who uses his money as votes

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by Economics, politics • Tags: , ,

Here’s an idea. How about citizens can have multiple votes, the number determined by their wealth? Billionaire mining magnates like Palmer and Rinehart get the minimum one vote each, “ordinary working families” get, say, 100 for each family member; single mothers in housing estates get 1000; refugees get 2,000, and everybody else is somewhere in between. There, that should concentrate the minds of politicians wonderfully eh?

Oh, and poor old Clive and Gina? Well, they would still have the option of buying television networks or full page ads in newspapers. If they could see a message that would get across.

Might need a bit of tinkering and fine tuning, a bit of adjustment of precise numbers of votes per individual, but generally speaking I think it would have to be a considerable improvement on the present arrangement which is effectively the reverse.

Oh and a gentle reminder:
If you would like to see your favourite blog recognised in the big wide world of the Best Blogs 2012, voting for the People’s Choice Award is still open (just)!
You can vote here. Just click on the button on the right (then go alphabetically to find THE Watermelon Blog, ie under T not W). Voting will close Wednesday 9 May at 5.00 pm. All winners will be announced on Thursday 10 May at 10.00 am by the Sydney Writers Centre. Come on now, pretty please?

PS The title, rather cheekily comes from a somewhat different, and reverse, context- Paul Samuelson 1970:

The consumer, so it is said, is the king … each is a voter who uses his money as votes to get the things done that he wants done.

Well played sir!

32
by politics •

Apologies for my recent absence from this blog. Just for fun I developed a case of Shingles. I suggest, if you can avoid it, you don’t; and if you have some odd symptoms, ask your doctor “Could this be Shingles?” just in case. Anyway, slowly recovering to the stage where I can write again.

One major political event during my absence has been the announcement by Bob Brown that he was resigning as leader of the Greens and would not contest the next election for the Senate. A great deal has been written about Bob in his role not only in Australia but worldwide in establishing both conservation movements and Greens political parties, but I thought I would add a couple of observations of my own.

I met Bob some years ago, and was immediately struck by the fact that his private persona was exactly like his public one. You will often hear it said about politicians, carefully guarding, on the advice of image makers, their public persona, that either they are much more unpleasant in real life than on tv, or they are much nicer in private than they appear to the public. Bob Brown was a classic case of what you saw was what there was – image and reality were the same.

The second unusual thing about him politically was that he answered questions honestly and thoughtfully and individually. He didn’t go out to the press pack with his prepared slogans and practiced one phrase answers. but dealt with each question on its merits. I was struck this week how rare this was, in listening to the Victorian Attorney General, quizzed on his setting up a parliamentary query on child abuse by the churches, answering every question with the same carefully memorised three sentence “reply”. This essentially said he was setting up a parliamentary enquiry because he was setting up a parliamentary enquiry because … well you get the idea. But they almost all do it these days, to the extent that it comes as a shock to hear a politician answering a question directly.

As I write this I am struck by a thought. Being the same person in public and private, and answering questions in a rational way, are both features of our everyday lives. Do any of you not behave like that to family, friends and colleagues? And yet we have come to accept, to our detriment, that politicians live in some other world in which that behaviour is not normal.

Bob Brown showed that it doesn’t have to be like that, and he will be missed.

Note – It is time to vote for your favourite blog (you will find this one alphabetically under THE Watermelon Blog) at the Sydney Writer’s Centre Awards. I will try to incorporate the voting button on this post so subscribers will get it in their feed, but if I fail, could you visit the blog please, admire the new design if you haven’t yet seen it, and click on the voting button on the right. You can vote for more than one blog (there are 900 nominated) but you can only vote in one session. It would be good to feel I was getting things right for you

Anyway, will try to get back into regular posting (and tweeting), health permitting. See you again soon.

People's Choice Award

The kindness of strangers

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by Economics, politics • Tags: , , ,

Rain rain rain and more rain recently. Records set all over the place yet again, but shoosh, don’t mention climate change.

Not what I wanted to talk about here though. Was following bulletins anxiously during the worst of it, checking road closures and the like as family members were travelling. And seeing interviews from SES volunteers about how many call outs they had attended and so on. What would we do without them? I’m OK, up on a hill, but many people weren’t. Trees through roofs, needing tarps; houses and shops needing sandbags; cars off roads; rescues here, rescues there, rescues everywhere. It’s hard, tiring, dirty, often dangerous work, called out at any time of day or night, and, given the nature of the work, called out in atrocious weather. And the people in the yellow uniforms are volunteers, doing it for love of community, the kindness of strangers.

It has thankfully been another quiet Summer for the bush fire brigades around here. But they stay alert, keep the trucks ready, maintain the hoses, practice the drills, raise funds, inform the public. Making sure they are ready for the return of El Nino and a hot dry Summer. Then they will be as busy as the SES in a storm. Volunteers of course, bush fire brigades, on alert day and night through the Summer, and even in winter for road accidents and other fires.

A little while ago our village got a defibrillator (this is a subject close to my own heart), and with it a small group of locals volunteered to have training in its use and be available to use it in an emergency. Many people in our community have done first aid training, some even join St John’s Ambulance to provide more formal first aid services for sporting and community events. On a slightly different but related path are the Meals on Wheels volunteers.

We are used to community volunteers doing all kinds of work around schools, young people, scouts and guides, helping the elderly, Cleaning up Australia, running community festivals and shows and fetes and cake stalls. In fact society couldn’t function very well without our unpaid volunteers, supported as much as possible by government.

Next time you hear a conservative muttering about how human society is red in tooth and claw, no such thing as free lunch, everything must have a profit motive otherwise it won’t work, remember that they have obviously never been caught in fire or flood, had a heart attack miles from hospital, or been involved in community activities.

But be kind to them, as you are to any stranger.

I have a dream

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by politics • Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

One of the consequences of the various items in my apothecary’s materia medica cupboard has been an increased richness, frequency, intensity, activity of dreams. Not, I hasten to add, either bad nightmares (or very rarely) on the one hand, or anything really nice on the other, just frantic activity of a mundane and apparently real kind. Usually I can’t remember anything about the five or six each night longer than it takes to go back to sleep, or have breakfast at the end of the exhausting proceedings, but every so often one sticks.

I am reminded here of one of my favourite James Thurber stories (a tautological phrase). It concerns a married couple where, over time, the wife takes to correcting, in more and more detail, the anecdotes her husband tells at parties. Eventually it gets to the point where he can no longer tell a real life story because of the interruptions and corrections, so he takes to telling invented imaginary dreams. This works briefly, but then she starts correcting the dreams. He finishes up in an asylum, reduced to telling one invented dream over and over, getting it “wrong”, and being corrected by his wife who sits by his bed.

Not that that digression has anything to do with me, I hasten to add, it is just that, having a lot of dreams to deal with, the story came back to me.

So, where was I? Ah yes, remembered one from the other night, perhaps because it was so different from the usual sort of running through an airport late for a plane, or trying to get a car repaired, or almost playing cricket for Australia. Not even sure what triggered it, usually I can spot something that has been in the news etc. Anyway, I was visiting North Korea. Yep, I know, I knew it was odd too. But it was nothing to do with the new leadership or bombs or massed gymnasts or goose-stepping troops. Nothing at all. I was somehow visiting a small village. I was made really welcome, invited in to a house for a meal, given presents, given hugs on parting, told to come back soon. Told that I had been adopted into their village, was one of them now, part of the family, and neither they nor I could understand why their country and mine and America etc were bitter enemies. I was really touched, looking back, thinking what normal people they were, just like me, must come back and see them etc, then suddenly woke up, and poof it was gone.

Look when I say I don’t know what triggered it I probably do. It came during yet more weeks of sabre rattling everywhere – of Netanyahu and the Republicans wanting to bomb Iran back to the stone age, Hillary Clinton lecturing North Korea, the Germans lecturing Greece, America lecturing Syria, China lecturing Tibet, England lecturing Scotland, and so on. All of it done by presidents and prime ministers and foreign ministers, standing at podiums in front of massed flags, talking to their counterparts in the country being lectured. Talking also to the elites, the military top brass, the bankers, the businessmen.

But not talking to the people in my dream – the peasants – nor to the poor villagers, the farmers, the factory workers, the labourers, the public servants, the students, nurses, teachers, mothers, children. Furthermore these grand lecturers have never met any of these ordinary citizens of the countries being lectured. UN should have a rule, you are not allowed to bomb, or turn the IMF loose on, a country until you have lived for a year with some of its ordinary citizens. You listening Hillary, Angela, Benjamin?

Then see if you can bomb my dream North Koreans.

Telling stories

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by Media, politics • Tags: , , ,

You cannot hope to bribe or twist,
thank God! the British journalist.
But, seeing what the man will do
unbribed, there’s no occasion to.(Humbert Wolfe)

It is an image for our times, the pulling down of the statue of the dictator Saddam Hussein. We all know now it was a fake – the statue was pulled down by American soldiers (one of whom made a big mistake, draping American flag over head of statue, which had to be quickly removed). The “cheering crowds” “filling the square” were some of the Iraqi exiles brought in by the Americans, made to look like a big crowd by making sure cameras were focused right up close on this small rent-a-crowd.

The reason for this fakery? It had to be created to support a narrative. Defence Secretary Rumsfeld had claimed, as the invasion was about to begin, that the Americans would be welcomed with cheering crowds throwing flowers to the troops. That is, the narrative was a replay of American troops liberating Paris in 1944. The reality was that it was a replay of the Germans invading Paris in 1940. So in the absence of beautiful women with flowers, the “pulling down the statue” had to be faked. Had no effect on reality, of course, as the next few years showed, but the images kept the public content and were shown over and over by the compliant media.

I have considered this incident at some length because it has become the model for much that passes as mainstream journalism these days, and because politics has evolved to take advantage of it. Just yesterday Kevin Rudd turned up in a street and was, according to media, “mobbed” by an adoring crowd, thus proving his popularity. In an article headed “Rudd humbled then mobbed” we had

“Hitting the streets of Brisbane yesterday Kevin Rudd was mobbed by excited supporters ahead of Monday’s vote on the Labor leadership.” and then remarkable journalist honesty – “The Rudd’s walk through the Mall was a chance for photographers to capture the images to reinforce the message from today’s three opinion polls”

Now the thing looked staged to me, like the Hussein statue. Cameras in close-up suggesting throngs (one later from distance showing small group and many of them the media). A sort of uniform look to the young people (someone later queried a Young Labor group). I don’t know the truth, but the point is, nor did the journalists. An event had been organised which matched their perception (and some opinion polls) of Rudd as rock star, and no one was going to rock that boat. Too much effort perhaps, or not suiting the agenda of journalist or media proprietor.

These kind of stunts have become an almost daily part of Tony Abbott’s free media campaign. Day after day the media would be summoned to see Tony – in hard hat, white coat, overalls, swimming costume, goggles – gut a fish, sit in a truck, hammer a nail, swim in a race, buy some cake. All content free – just an extended photo opportunity and a sound bite, off with the goggles and white coat, on to the next stunt. And yet, each night the journalists would happily, uncritically, report this rubbish as if they were a Liberal Party advertising agency doing a paid promotion. As they effectively were.

And day after day, when they weren’t practising journalism as stenography to the powerful (and practising a journalism that relies on saying and doing exactly what your colleagues are saying and doing), they were promoting false balance, citing anonymous “sources”, and promoting, almost unanimously (some overtly, some subtly), the interests of conservative political parties.

Whenever I, and others, make observations like this, we are met with a strong reaction from journalists. Most, probably all, journalists see themselves as a noble profession, part of the fourth estate, defending the people against the first two estates (well, not the church of course. Or royalty. But, you know). In every journalist’s knapsack is a Woodward baton. And a phone on which the first Watergate call will be received.

They are good people, family people, loving children and pets, good citizens. And hard-working, highly trained professionals doing stressful jobs that are totally misunderstood outside the profession. Oh, and proprietor interference with what they produce? Come on, get your tinfoil hat off mate.

So why the huge disconnect between how journalists perceive their own profession and how it is perceived by a number of anonymous highly ranked commentators? Two reasons I think (I’m talking political journalists here, but the same thing would apply to sports journalists, business journalists, entertainment journalists). The first is that the journalists, whatever media outlet, seem to see themselves as something of a club, and a beleaguered club, of people misunderstood by the general public. Much in the same way as politicians and policemen, journalists think no one appreciates how hard the work is, what long irregular hours they work, what skills are required. They work alongside each other, socialise, marry each other, move between different media outlets, give each other industry awards. They no longer compete with each other for “scoops”. Instead (just as in the lack of competition between banks, oil companies) they ensure that if one person does a story everyone else will immediately do the same story in exactly the same way, so no one gains any advantage. Breaking ranks to either ignore a particularly crap story, or investigate something others were not asking questions about might leave you exposed on a limb, making a mistake. Besides, to question something your mates were accepting would be unsporting, might embarrass, expose, a friend, and you won’t do that to your friends and don’t expect them to do it to you.

But it gets worse. The journalists not only work and play with each other but with the subjects of their work, the politicians. All the same things apply. No one understands them like each other, they share a workplace, intermarry, party together, are each other’s BFF or worst enemy. They share secrets, and, like doctors and priests, journalists can guarantee the secrecy of the confessional. Say what you like, political person, and I will publish, anonymously, no more and no less than you want published to suit your purposes. You win, I win (promotions and by-lines and tv shows if secret big enough), we are all looking out for each other in parliament house. And here too, no one asks awkward questions, or friendships could be lost, access to secrets curtailed. You scratch my back, I’ll report your political stunt as if it is the Gettysburg Address. But even more than that I think. The journalists have come to see themselves as players, politicians themselves, but for minor accidents of pre-selection. They are not umpires, linesmen, referring games, reporting infringements, showing red cards, but out on the field running and tackling with the rest of the team. Will identify so strongly with particular individuals, particular political parties, that their interests become indistinguishable, and it is not uncommon to hear a journalist say “we” when they mean the political party of their preference.

And that almost does it, with one final polish. I don’t think Rupert Murdoch and other media owners (including the new intrusion of billionaire miners) get on the phone to reporters and say “spike that story” or “lose that tape” or “praise that politician” as they are said to have done in years gone by. You will often hear them and their employees denying that any such instructions are given and I believe it. Why would you bother? Much easier (and with the advantage of plausible deniability) to use the pyramid approach. Appoint a managing editor (or whatever is the senior post) who is absolutely sympatico to the owners ideas, politics, philosophy, so close as to be like Young Liberal twins separated at birth. He (occasionally she) then appoints the next level of management, half a dozen editors, say. Needless to say each of those will have the right family background, have attended the right school, and will undergo careful interviewing to ensure not a breath of heterodoxy has crept in at, say, university. Leave those editors, producers, whatever to appoint the next level of journalists, presenters etc, the public face, coal face people. Should go without saying that those people in turn, the actual, so to speak, workers, will all be of the right kind, and so on.

From then on the thing runs itself. Not only have you handpicked the team individually, but all of them having similar world views means they reinforce each other’s approaches. And since all the other media outlets have been similarly staffed, the linkages will ensure that all can be relied upon to come up with the same stories, presented in the same ways, none of which, it can be guaranteed, will make a hair on the proprietor’s head curl (although, just for the look of the thing, an occasional maverick will occupy a column). He or she can relax, knowing that their business and political interests are being soundly cultivated, and simply count their money.

And the journalists, working hard, can remain indignant that anyone could suggest there is political interference in their noble calling.

Hard to think of any losers in that system of managing the fourth estate.

Well, except for the third estate of course.

Three coins in a fountain

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by politics • Tags: , , , ,

Our extended family have always been inveterate coin collectors (and stamps but that’s another story). Oh not collectors in the sense of joining clubs, and shopping for rarities online, and having every Australian threepence, or a 1930 Australian penny; but collectors in the sense of putting in a jar unusual coins picked up here there and everywhere and keeping them for the next 100 years in the sure and certain knowledge that one day they would be worth a lot of money to the great grandchildren.

So I have been going through the accumulated results of all this, and have old coins spread all over the table, trying to see what they are, and what, if anything they are worth. Short answer – nothing. I keep finding bits on the internet saying things like well, everyone collected 50 cent commemorative coins and there were millions made, so worthless. We have a lot of 50c commemorative coins. Same for every jar, every box, every bag I opened. You want to know the least valuable old coins from Australia, Britain, America, France, Greece, New Zealand, Japan, Palestine, I’ve got ‘em on a list.

Hang on “Palestine” 1935, that’s interesting. Wonder how … Oh yes, of course. Have a photo of my father in Tel Aviv in the war. And then I start to think about the coins not in terms of monetary value but in terms of family history. And bit by bit the pattern emerged. An overseas holiday here, a job in New Zealand there, a trip to visit relatives in England, men at war (Middle East, New Guinea), migrations to Australia, men at war (Gallipoli, France), migrations to Australia. Here a soldier on leave empties the coins from his pocket; there a family puts coins from the old country, no longer of use, in a jar in a new country; and over here fathers, mothers, grandmothers, after holidays, show young children the interesting foreign coins they have in purse and wallet.

So elements of a family history, but even more than that. Many of the coins are worn, very worn. It’s one of the reasons they lack value, the coin collectors preferring “uncirculated” coins. But the wear makes them seem more valuable to me. There are British pennies so worn smooth that they are almost unreadable, dating back to mid-nineteenth century and handled by thousands, tens of thousands of people; rubbed in wallets and purses and trouser pockets and shop tills. Not so much six degrees of separation, as I hold an 1851 penny in my hand, a young Queen Victoria on one side, but a connection with all of the people who have handled it before me.

Worthless?