Tag Archives: America

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)”

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

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.

To be hanged with the bible

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by Atheism, politics • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

When the bible was written humans* didn’t know:
About bacteria and viruses and parasites
Blood circulation
Earth going around sun
More than 5 planets
About galaxies
There was a southern hemisphere
Earth round
What lightning is
That whales aren’t fish
What mental illness involves
About genes and inheritance
About Chinese, Aztecs, Zulus, Aborigines, Navaho, Japanese, Papuans, Bushmen, Mayans, Eskimo, Indonesians, West Africans, Britons
Composition of matter
Any history
Composition of moon
About fossils
There was a western hemisphere
The age of the Earth
About the great apes
About continental drift
About kangaroos, lemurs, opossums, emus, iguanas, alpacas, platypus, kiwi, gila lizards, sloths, tree frogs, humming birds, horseshoe crabs, peripatus, tasmanian tigers, rhinoceros

When bible written humans had never:
Flown
Travelled faster than a horse can run
Communicated except by speaking directly
Elected a government
Swum under the ocean
Read books
Looked through a telescope
Looked through a microscope
Warmed themselves by anything except wood fires
Been cured by antibiotics
Had a surgical operation
Seen a hospital, school or factory
Seen a town of more than few thousand people

When bible written humans were happy about:
Slavery
Women as chattels
Divine kings
Child marriage
War
Destruction of environment
Gods living on mountains
Child labour
Torture
Human sacrifice
Ghosts
Magic

And yet there are people in 2012 who believe everything written in the bible. There are people who use it to determine who to vote for, where to send their children to school, how they feel about burning environmental and social and economic and cultural issues. And if that wasn’t bad enough, incredible enough, we can’t just smile wisely and say “there there, one day you will grow up” as we might to a child who tries to live their life by, say, the Harry Potter books, because there are people who want to insist that the rest of the world obey these silly old books as well. There are people making all kinds of pronouncements about the environment, about bringing up children, about justice, about science, about art and literature, based not on some independent and rational analysis of an issue, but on what they think is said in the bible about it. And in turn appearing in the media, influencing politicians about it, indeed running for political office themselves. Some countries, notably Iran, Saudi Arabia, and America, are now theocracies run by people who know nothing except what someone has told them an old book says.

Angry? You betcha. The modern world is difficult enough, will become more difficult in the future, without the drag on political life from people living in the past. Can’t laugh at these people any more, this is serious.

*By “humans” in what follows I sometimes mean “the whole human race” and sometimes “the humans who wrote the bits and pieces of old manuscript that got collected together and called ‘the bible’”, which is which will be obvious and not of much importance anyway.

Back to Methuselah

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by Economics, politics • Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Bit of serendipity other day. As I was planning this post I was taken to task by a right wing tweeter unhappy, for some reason, that I had repeated the obvious truism that conservatives are much dumber than progressives. Progressivism, in fact, has an intelligence bias. Anyway, left him to his own world after a while, and sharpened up my intentions for this post.

Morning of 6 June 1968 in Australia, and the news was filtering in, few details, that Robert Kennedy had been shot while campaigning in California for the nomination as Democratic candidate for President (in one of those lovely historical quirks to face off, as it would transpire, against Richard Nixon, just as his brother had done 8 years earlier). So there we were having morning coffee in the tearoom at the university feeling sombre about the news, when in bounced my American academic room mate happily singing the words “Bobby Kennedy’s a vegetable, Bobby Kennedy’s a vegetable”. So demonstrating that (1) even California girls can be conservative (2) that university students can be conservative and (3) that there was a strain of Kennedy family hatred running deep among many Americans in 1968.

I always liked Bobby Kennedy. Saw him, I suppose, as a chance to restart the JFK promise cut short by that bastard in Dallas. And even more so. RFK seemed brighter than his brother and in the 5 years since his loss had come a long way on civil rights and the war. But the right were having none of that, and another bastard shot him, and then it was back to the mediocrity of Humphrey versus Nixon, the old firm back in town.

Said some good things, RFK, in those few brief years. One of the best known was “There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?” This was a paraphrased (and improved) quote from GB Shaw Back to Methuselah “You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’” It’s one of those “two kinds of people in the world” dichotomies, and when I was thinking about the difference between conservatives and progressives it came back to me. Kennedy and Shaw are not quite right for this use for modern times, in fact have almost reversed in meaning.

Progressives look at the world, get the facts on how it is, and ask “Why is that the situation?”, “What do we do about that?”, “How do we solve that?” They live in a fact-based world where problems are identified, analysed, responded to in a real way. Conservatives have no interest in the actual world. One will say “I want to do that” and the other will say “Why not?” and that will settle the issue. Or to put it another way, conservatives have a rigid ideology to which they are determined to make the world conform. With violence if necessary. Or even if not necessary – to hell with it, good money to be made out of wars. They have no interest in looking around and finding out what the world is actually like, they know what it is like, exactly, none of that wishy washy progressive doubt sort of stuff. No need for any of that scientific research and analysis crap either. Just decision-making, that’s all that’s needed. If someone says can we clear this forest for development a conservative says “why not?” Conservatives can have a forest cleared while an ecologist is still putting on his work trousers. A factory owner asks “hey, is it really safe to keep pumping all this CO2 into the air?” A conservative says “why not? who’s ever going to notice?” A businessman says “Hey, why not cut my taxes even more?” A conservative says “why not indeed? Best if you paid no tax really. After all your wealth will trickle down to the undeserving poor eventually”. A billionaire says “Health care? For the poor? Why if you have to ask how much it is you can’t afford it.” A Libertarian says “Why not get rid of all regulation now?” A conservative says “D’Oh!”

And meanwhile the progressives are asking “Why is the planet warming? Why is the wealth gap increasing? Why are poor people still starving? Why are species rapidly going extinct? Why are buildings collapsing? Why are children still dying?” Trying to find out. Trying to do something about it.

Thing is, just between you and me, the answers to the Progressive’s questions are the results of the answers to the Conservative’s questions. Been the case since Methuselah’s time.

You know why.

Give the order

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

You all remember Old King Canute taking his throne down to the beach, right – “Cnut set his throne by the sea shore and commanded the tide to halt and not wet his feet and robes. Yet “continuing to rise as usual [the tide] dashed over his feet and legs without respect to his royal person. Then the king leapt backwards, saying: “Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws.”

Possibly true, possibly not. It was a thousand years ago, if it happened, and our media finds it impossible to recount accurately something that happened 1000 minutes ago. But if it wasn’t then it should have been. Should have been read out to every subsequent king and baron. Oh not the god nonsense of course, they did enough of that for themselves, but the idea that the most powerful person had no control over the natural world and its “laws”.

Certainly should be read out to Ms Gina Rinehart, richest woman in the universe, well, Australia anyway, and probably the one with the greatest hubris, now that Maggie Thatcher and Sarah Palin have left politics.

She was fairly private and low key until a couple of years ago. Then she emerged in the front of a crowd of well-dressed protesters, with professionally printed signs, bused in from a nearby office to stand at attention on astroturf. It was a very small crowd, but with the use of a camera carefully focussed just on the front row, managed to give the most inaccurate record of an event since US soldiers pulled down the statue of Saddam Hussein in a pretence it was a sign of popular support for the invasion.

But I digress. There was Gina (was she holding a sign? I forget) chanting with the others “Whaddawe want? No taxes for billionaires. Whendowe want it? Now”. No, I made that up a little bit, a rough translation but capturing the essence of the event.

Made so much noise that day and other days through the media they won the debate, tax essentially dropped, prime minister dumped from office partly as a result. Power, sure, but not much different to the power the very rich have been exerting in this egalitarian society for 200 years.

And then I read this and suddenly we were into much more sinister doings. Into the American world of the Koch Brothers, and PACs, corporations as people, and the Heritage Foundation.

So it has gone ahead. Last few days have seen Rinehart taking the major shareholding in Fairfax, Plimer appointed to her boards. And the IPA, apparently also supported by her financially has, over the last few years, become ubiquitous almost daily across all the media of the ABC. Some of the details about this are available here and here and here.

So we are reaching a situation where Murdoch controls 70% of the Australian commercial media, Rinehart in effect will control much of the rest, and the IPA is ensuring that the ABC takes a strongly right wing view of every issue and climate change is scarcely ever mentioned.

So expect over the next decades, that these powerful people will ensure the election of an ultra conservative Coalition government, the media will release only information it wants released and will tell you what to think about it, that no action witll be taken on climate change in any way, and environmental protection and regulation will be smashed. I can see no way of stopping this no matter how many of us blog away in our small corners of this brown land. Twenty billion dollars versus twenty million people in a democracy? No contest.

But then in ten years time I have a picture of this lonely woman sitting on a throne on a beach. Behind her a gaggle of shock jocks and climate change deniers and mining CEOs and conservative politicians. One of them is saying “Give the order, O great Queen, and it will obey”. She is holding out her hand to the sea and commanding “climate stop changing”, but then she gets drowned by the rising water levels and I can see her no more.

La même chose

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by Economics, politics • Tags: , , , , , , , ,

It’s one of those historic events that still, 630 years on, resonate with modern times and make your blood run cold.

In 1381 the so-called “Peasant’s Revolt” led by Wat Tyler massed tens of thousands of poor people protesting the new “Poll Tax” which, like our GST, made poor people pay as much tax as rich people. And against the essentially slavery conditions many of them worked under.

Richard II, then just a teenager, agreed in one meeting to a number of things the protesters wanted. Then in a second meeting the Mayor of London treacherously stabbed Wat Tyler during further negotiations. Tyler rode off, the king led the others into a trap and they were then dispersed. Tyler was dragged out of hospital and beheaded.

Then as Peter Ackroyd* recounts “A few days later Richard revoked the charter of emancipation [freedom of slaves, fair rent for land, punishment of the poll tax gatherers] he had granted to the crowd at Mile End, on the ground that it had been extorted from him by violence. He travelled to Essex in order to observe the aftermath of the now extinguished revolt. A group of villagers there asked him to remain faithful to the pledges he had made them a few days before.

His reply was:

“You wretches are detestable both on land and on sea. You seek equality with the lords, but you are unworthy to live. Give this message to your fellows: rustics you are, and rustics you will always be. You will remain in bondage, not as before, but incomparably harsher. For as long as we live we will strive to suppress you, and your misery will be an example to prosperity.”


A few months later “A parliament was called … where it was proposed that the state of bondage known as villeinage should be abolished.The Lords and Commons, their vital interests as landlords at stake, unanimously voted against any such action.” The leaders of the rebels were rounded up and beheaded (John Ball, as a major leader with Tyler, being hung drawn and quartered).

So a sad story. Just one of many attempts all over the world, through the centuries, to improve the lot of ordinary people, which has been met with brutal repression. And what struck me, reading the king’s words again, was that they could be used, unchanged, by billionaires and corporate leaders around the world today. And by their political front men (and women – not hard to imagine Thatcher making such a speech to the coal miners for example). The power relationships, and attitudes, in spite of centuries of “democratic advance”, remain unchanged in 2012, as seen in the Republican front-runners, the Cameron UK Government, the Australian Opposition.

* Peter Ackroyd 2011 “The History of England vol 1 Foundation” Macmillan, London

Extraordinary

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

When I put in a complaint the other day regarding an extraordinarily biased tv report about cattle in national parks a twitter follower asked if I would have complained if the bias had been the other way. Made me consider the question for a moment.

The answer of course is “no”, but why? Remember Carl Sagan’s comment that “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs”? Which is why there was such interest in the “faster than light neutrinos” the other day. That claim illustrated the Sagan idea – it has to be checked and rechecked, duplicated and reduplicated (and hasn’t yet been, so it is not an extraordinary proof and is probably wrong).

Which brings me back to the question of “balance” in a story in the media. An “ordinary” claim doesn’t require balance. Earth is round, species evolve, there is no imaginary friend, the planet is warming as a result of human activity, Elvis Presley is dead, chocolate and red wine are good for you? Go for it, make your program, I’ll watch it, no problems.

But if your schtick is that vaccination is bad for you, cigarettes good for you, the moon landings were fake, a picture of Jesus has appeared on a piece of toast, there is no global warming, cattle are good for the alpine environment, etc, etc, etc, then you had damn well better present the other side of the argument or at least indicate its existence, or I’ll be down on you before you can say “Media Watch”.

To paraphrase Sagan, extraordinary claims require a balanced tv program. Which brings me to the second part of a modern recipe for accurate television – we need to be told the affiliations of the person making the program, or speaking during a segment, or writing a newspaper column, or a blog.

Affiliations that have no bearing on an argument in hand are irrelevant. Someone who is a member of a football club, and who comments on, say, environmental issues, has no obligation to reveal that they are a Collingwood supporter. Nor would someone who went to a particular church, had a hobby involving antique furniture, or whose place of work was a hospital.

On the other hand if the topic being addressed was poker machines or liquor licences then football club membership would almost certainly be relevant. As would the other interests be if the topics were private school subsidy, import duties, or health funding.

We live in times where people go to great lengths to hide affiliations that are relevant. Hence the rise and rise of right wing think tanks with bland titles and hidden funding sources. Hence the rise of “astro turf” protest groups, apparent movements arising spontaneously as a result of public anger or concern, in reality carefully created by billionaires, or conservative politicians, or media shock jocks. Hence the rise of commentators with, like the think tanks, bland meaningless names like “social commentator”. Hence the rise of political parties with apparently meaningful names “People for the Forest” say, or “Responsible Climate Change Action” which will turn out to be parties started by forestry and coal companies respectively, with a policy of cutting down trees and burning coal.

So I am very careful to look at the affiliations of people I am seeing and hearing these days, want to know if their background is ordinary or extraordinary in some way. But does it matter, won’t their arguments, if valid, stand alone, fail if not? Well, yes, it does.

Physics has to be time and geography independent. That is, whenever and wherever you perform an experiment the results should be potentially the same. This is also true of other sciences, with obvious variations in biological science. What should also be true is that science is ideology independent. That is, if you read, or hear, a paper by a scientist, whatever their background, it will be the results that count (while recognising that interpretations can vary in all kinds of ways).

But outside of science it matters greatly. If I read something by, for the sake of argument, George Pell, I am reading something by someone who is not merely a Catholic but who has so much absorbed and accepted Catholic teachings as to be Cardinal and head of church in Australia. When he pontificates then, on issues such as gay marriage, contraception, abortion, church school funding, religion in the classroom, I don’t read his words as being the result of independent research and analysis to reach a carefully considered position, but as simply a statement of church dogma.

Similarly if I read, hear, material on the economy from a libertarian free market think tank funded by big business, I am quite sure I won’t be reading any Keynesian economics, or support for socialism, or for action on environmental issues. In addition, on more particular issues, where the tank has funding from, say, energy companies or tobacco companies, I know I won’t be reading research supporting climate change action or reduction in cigarette promotion.

I really don’t want to know what clubs think about problem gamblers, foresters about tree felling, pubs about alcohol, evangelicals about evolution, psychics about the supernatural, irrigators about water, nuclear spokespeople about nuclear safety, billionaires about taxation, shooters about gun safety, libertarians about public service, warmongers about war. So when people appear, right there on my tv, making statements about such things, I really do want to know where they are coming from. If someone with no axe to grind has done independent research which shows that more forest can be cut down, fine, I’ll listen to your arguments, examine your data. But if you are an employee of a pulp mill forget it.

A scientist approaches a question in the spirit of the old legal oath – “The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” – following the data to see where it leads, what the answer to the question is, however it might conflict with, contradict, the hypothesis the scientist began with. An ideologue (of whatever kind), or someone paid by ideologues or interest groups, does the opposite of this, they start with the answer, the truth as revealed by, say, Hayek or Benedict, and they set about investigating the data in order to obtain that answer. What else could it do, it is the truth, the whole truth, and there is nothing else but that truth? Whether they know it or not, people who start with an answer instead of a question are driven by their ideology.

Look this is not to say there are not scientists with ideology that warps their science. Most notoriously in evolution and climate change. It is usually easy to recognise because of their strong links with religious groups or libertarian think tanks (climate change being the biggest challenge ever posed to the mad-brained libertarian ideology). In some it can be more subtle though, representing political mind-sets more inclined to accept one analysis than another (an example in my own field of research being the role of fire in Australian ecosystems). With so much money around these days for those willing to argue against climate change, or gambling reform, or plain packaging of cigarettes, it is not surprising that a scientist of a certain ideological tendency can be tempted to turn a blind eye to some results, or present other results in the way most favourable to his or her employers. Or even without money, argue strongly for something which forms a fundamental part of their political or religious world view.

Obviously we all approach issues with predispositions influenced in some way by our family background, schooling, personal circumstances and so on. We are all ideological creatures to some extent. Me no less than others. In the ordinary scheme of things this doesn’t matter. I may want some research outcome to match my own belief about, say education strategies, but if it doesn’t I would shrug and say well, isn’t that interesting. My “ideology”, such as it is, doesn’t tell you much about what I write except in a negative sense – I am an atheist, I am vaguely left of political centre with an interest in the environment, I belong to no political party, I am not employed by any think tank, I have no financial vested interest in political outcomes. Judge what I say, the logic of my arguments, the quality of my data. I guess my outlook is coloured by my background, but good luck working out how. And that would be true of a very big proportion of ordinary people writing, blogging, appearing on tv, voting in elections.

But where it is not true I bloody well want to know before I invite you into my living room or on to my computer screen. Okay? That’s not so extraordinary is it?

Through early morning fog I see

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by politics • Tags: , , , , , , ,

Don’t know if you remember, but last year there was a lovely story about a long ago failed suicide attempt. A young woman’s fiance had died (I think, or jilted her) and in her despair she threw herself off the Gap in Sydney. I forget the precise details but she missed the rocks below, landed in the water, and was rescued by a couple of chaps fishing in a boat who by chance saw her fall. Anyway the point of the story (apart from being an example of the absolute random nature of life and death) was that she decided she wanted to live after all, eventually got married, got an education, produced children and grandchildren etc, had a career, a rich and full life of benefit to many others. Happy ever after. So it goes.

Got me thinking though.Thought about it as there was debate in the US about execution of prisoners on poor evidence. As DNA evidence freed prisoners on death row. As the execrable Rick Perry, as vicious a hanging Texas governor as George Bush before him, had to “apologise” for executing a prisoner as belated evidence proved his innocence. Thought about it, in short, as the madness that is the death penalty continues to play out in America, uniquely among civilised countries. Thought about the wasted lives, the clearly rehabilitated prisoners whose appeals were turned down by hanging governors, often mockingly.

Thought too about the mandatory sentencing, the mandatory minimum sentencing, the “three strikes” populism that has filled the gaols of America and is filling up those of Australia. The madness that leaves young people behind bars for life. It is clear in both countries, that any idea of rehabilitation, of trying to turn lives around, to save them from drowning in prison, is long gone. Guantanamo is, in a sense, a microcosm of the penal mindset of politicians and public in both countries. Lock ‘em up, throw away the key.

And finally, emerging once again in the last year, were yet more stories of the children “stolen” (under various pretences) in the not too distant past from poor parents, black and white, and shoved into religious [usually] hell holes, with vicious physical punishment, often sexual abuse, and no real education beyond physical labour. The wasted potential, the ruined lives, still makes the victims weep today, makes those who hear their stories weep.

They needed rescuers too, they were drowning, not waving, and all of them had potential for rich lives, contributing much to society, producing families. Potential often greatly reduced or totally lost as a result of the treatment they received.

People may say I’m a dreamer. Hell yes, guilty as charged. Obviously there are psychopaths, sociopaths, pedophiles, arsonists, murderers, with damaged or inadequate brains who need to be kept out of society. Obviously there are crimes so heinous that a very long time in prison, if not life, is called for as punishment. But the shock jocks and populists would have you believe that everyone in prison comes under those headings, I suspect the proportion is small.

And for the rest of them, isn’t it better to try to rehabilitate them so they can productively repay their “debt to society” back in society rather than unproductively in a prison cell? Or by killing them?

Life is short, death is long.