Tag Archives: America

When I use a word

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

Every year, regular as clockwork, as stores play “White Xmas” for first time and begin selling mince pies, some conservative-religious-fanatic-populist-politician-radio-shockjock will begin complaining about the “War on Xmas”.

Complain (with complete lack of historical/linguistic knowledge) about saying Xmas instead of Christmas, complain about “Happy holiday” instead of “Happy Xmas”, complain about lack of (totally invented) “nativity” scenes, and so on.

Some of this, most of this, is culture war stuff. Religious and political conservatives seeking stick to beat progressives, determined to impose their will and world view on society. But some, to be charitable in this season of goodwill, is a complete absence of any historical sense, and an inability to recognise the role of personal development in apparently rock solid core values. You know how your popular music tastes are formed by the music that is, well, popular in your teenage years? Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Beatles, Lady GaGa (heaven help us) will forever remain the yardstick by which you judge all the music that pre- and post-dates your period.

Same with Xmas. Your memories of the pleasures of childhood, your childhood, Xmas will remain etched in your brain as the sine qua non of all Xmases past present and future. The slightest deviation from that golden mean, just like the arrival of the Beatles (more popular of course than Christmas) heralded the death of Presleyesque Rock and Roll, means the pagans, the atheists, are out to destroy the one and only true spirit of Xmas past.

But this is also true in a more general sense. We think of Xmas, of course, as essentially the Xmas of our lifetimes, and our parent’s lifetimes, the Xmas, in fact of the twentieth century, of, for many of us, Dear old Blighty, The Mother Country, England. A Xmas unchanged and unchanging until, as the culture warriors see it, those militant atheists spoiled it for everyone – the end of Xmas as we know it.

Absolute nonsense of course, it has changed, been changed, added to, amalgamated, combined, modified, ever since the decision, many thousands, probably at least 10,000 years, ago, to begin celebrating the winter solstice. The depth of winter in the northern hemisphere, time to hope that the Sun was once again on its way back, and the happy days of Spring would one day be here again.

You know all the rest don’t you, pagan rituals, mistletoe, Saturnalia, adopted by christians to fit an imaginary story, St Nicholas, Queen Victoria, German trees, Charles Dickens, Coca Cola? Suffice it to say that if xmas culture warriors like Barnaby Joyce or American Bill O’Reilly were transported back to any time prior to, say, 1830 in England (or indeed Scotland or Wales), or to Europe (or indeed any other continent) they would find Xmas unrecognisable. Similarly a medieval English or European peasant time travelling to Xmas 2011 would have no idea what was going on, would view the festivities as they would an alien spaceship.

To take just one example. My beloved Pickwick Papers is often rightly seen as the book that began the trend towards the modern Xmas we see now. But if you read the Xmas scenes, this is a celebration by a rich landowner and his family with a visit by a group of rich unemployed middleclass travellers. The great mass of the population of England, peasants and poor, weren’t celebrating like this. They were lucky to get Xmas Day as a holiday at all. They never had celebrated it much other than by attending church on an extra day. The lords and ladies had always had solstice celebrations (nobless oblige us every one), but it wasn’t for the likes of you and me. Even after Pickwick Papers, the Xmas celebration was more popularised by Queen Victoria, and her German Consort introduced Germanic elements like trees and ornaments etc, and it remained very much an upper classes celebration.

Then other elements were added for commercial reasons – the food, the Xmas cards, ornaments, presents, indeed “Father Xmas” himself. And eventually, slowly and gradually, we got to the “traditional Xmas” in its current form some time after the second world war, the time that the culture warriors remember. Oh and “Xmas taking the Christ out of Christmas” (devilishly clever these culture warriors)? Fraid not, it is a very old religious abbreviation, the “X” actually being the Chi used as first letter abbreviation of Christ in Greek going way way back to the early church.

All sound familiar? Yes, you got it, it’s very very similar to the same-sex-marriage-war-on-marriage line pushed by many of the same cultural warriors who are dying in the ditch to keep Coca Cola Christmas as it ever was. “Traditional marriage” has about the same pedigree as “Traditional Xmas”. Proper registration of marriages only came in in England in 1837. Up until then it was the province of individual parishes. And the concept of people getting “formally married”, unless you were a member of royalty or aristocracy, with alliances to seal, land to inherit, was pretty hit and miss before about the eighteenth century. Peasants either married informally, or didn’t marry at all, children were christened or not or in batches. And the “nuclear family” was pretty much an invention of the post-war world. And all of that even without considering “marriage” customs in Australia or Africa and so on, all considerably different to what we have now. So, quite frankly, when people talk about marriage as an ancient institution they are talking ignorant bullshit.

Atheists can’t celebrate the festive season and gays can’t get married because some hard-faced men who look as if they have done well out of the culture wars have defined what those things are? Get over yourselves. Looking at you Barnaby.

Anyway, to all my blog readers and twitter followers, wherever you are, and whatever your marital state, have a great end-of-the-year-politically-correct-happy-holiday with family and community.

And as George Grossmith said “I am a poor man but I would gladly give ten shillings to find out who sent me the insulting Christmas card I received this morning.”

School of the Air

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by politics • Tags: , , , , , ,

Had a book as a child called something like “The School of the Air” in which the classroom was an aeroplane which flew all over the world so the children could experience directly what life was like in each of the countries, instead of just reading about it in books. Sounded great to me.

The other day the President of the USA, surrounded by several thousand bodyguards, minders, and journalists, rolled into town past the intersection where I was sitting in my car waiting. He was whisked here, whisked there, and finally whisked right back out again and sent on his way to Darwin where some more whisking went on.

Good that he could drop in. He seems once of the nicer, and certainly one of the smarter, American presidents of the last 100 years or so. He certainly will have known that it was Australia not Austria he was visiting, and he added us to the list of other countries he had visited all of which were America’s very best friends forever. He needs to know something about a country where American troops were stationed in World War 2, visited in big numbers during Vietnam, and, for reasons that escape me, are about to be stationed again. Also good for him to know about a country that has sent soldiers off (again, often for reasons that escape me) to fight alongside Americans. And a country that still catches the flu when Wall Street catches a bad cold, and one that is in various trade arrangements with his own.

But given all that, the whisking was counter-productive.

When I said “rolled into town” above you all know I meant Canberra. But he saw Canberra almost entirely through tinted windows, and almost entirely of the airport-parliament roadsides, the only exception being the War Memorial and Campbell High school a short distance away. What if he had rolled into Yass, quietly, in a beat up old station wagon, dressed in old farm gear with stained akubra pulled down over forehead, and gone for a bit of a walk? Called into shops and talked to owners, said g’day to passers by, bought a beer at pub and sat in corner with it, dropped in at Council, sat in park with icecream?

He might I think, just might, have learnt more about Australia and Australians than he learnt in driving to and from the airport, and giving and listening to speeches from politicians. Applies actually to all the political leaders from around the world.

Perhaps we could put them all in a school of the air, learn about each other. As long as the experience included an icecream in Yass.

Might reduce the number of wars, make trade fairer, make aid quicker. There are 7 billion of us now, and you can’t learn much about them from the back seat of a limousine.

Depends on the unreasonable

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

It is becoming increasingly clear, as time goes by, that, just as is the case for Obama in America, Julia Gillard is facing a media determined to force Labor out of office, backed by a ruthless Opposition, supported by an army of Tea Party-style astro-turf groups backed by billionaires. These groups are determined that no progressive legislation will be passed in the next year or two, and that both Obama and Gillard will be one term leaders.

In both cases the response from the Left has largely been to try to avoid progressive legislation, criticise progressive groups who are natural allies, introduce conservative social and environmental policies, and make economic moves aimed at meeting all the demands of the super rich.

These sacrifices thrown to the mob haven’t appeased them but made them even hungrier to achieve the total annihilation of any progressive policy of the last 50 years, and the smashing of the nominally left wing parties and their allies.

OK, so you tried. I wouldn’t have done it that way but I understand, sort of, the thinking. But it didn’t work. Your enemies are more emboldened, your friends are dispirited and won’t support you. What the hell, why don’t you go for it in the time you have left Julia? Roll out a mass of progressive legislation. Force it through.

Roll out:
*support for carers
*gay marriage
*end forest clearing
*water into Murray-Darling
*mental illness support
*pokie legislation
*mining tax
*onshore processing of refugees
*homeless program
*stop csg
*cut funding to fundamentalist and private schools, funnel money directly to public schools
*introduce financial transactions tax
*introduce media ownership and fairness rules
*switch drug laws to harm minimisation
*increase funding to universities, phase out hex fees
*remove political appointees, put people with relevant expertise on boards of statutory authorities
*ban uranium mining
*establish strong goals for GHG reduction
*support SKA telescope
*improve science training
*greatly increase training places for nurses and doctors
*support arts initiatives
*stop live animal export
*start major program for assisting farmers develop new enterprises in response to climate change
*do serious battle with Japan, and good old Norway, to end whaling
*get troops out of Afghanistan, increase aid instead
*significant old age and disability pension increase
*nationalise Qantas and Commonwealth Bank
*reintroduce strict quarantine on agricultural products
*end Aboriginal intervention
*end school chaplain program
*properly fund local Aboriginal-initiated education, cultural and economic projects
*use castiron legislation to guarantee independence of ABC and CSIRO
That’s just a start, I bet you all have other suggestions.

Crash through or Crash? Certainly. A kind of political blitzkrieg that will have your opponents running in all directions wondering what to say no to next as you march firmly towards the light on the hill. But I bet you will find that your natural friends will come out with trumpets blaring, flags flying. And you will attract many people who have been voting conservative out of desperation, wondering whether there was any difference at all (and preferring real conservatives to pretend conservatives). Your popularity will improve. You will save the seats of your most threatened backbenchers. You will save the seats of your loyal independents. You will win the election.

You will feel better about yourself.

And Australia will be a much better place.

Am I being unreasonable?

And Justices for all

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

Look forget about the Monarchists for a moment. The ones with flags and funny hats and collections of Charles and Diana commemorative mugs; the ones who camp out for two days on the street to possibly catch a glimpse of a gloved hand waving from a speeding limousine; the ones who spontaneously sing “god save the queen” or are in tears at the thought that they have been in the same public space as a person of royal blood. Forget them, I say (and yes, I know it’s not easy), and let’s look at the question of Australian “head of state” in a different way.

Oridinary intelligent thoughtful people (ie not monarchists) can still sometimes remain opposed to the idea of a “republic” in Australia. They will say “would you rather have the Queen or George W Bush?” and I admit that it is a fair question (more widely they will refer to the presidents of African or South American banana republics, suggesting that we are better off with the queen in, now that bananas are cheap again, a banana monarchy). Even more generally they will say “well, we have to have a head of state, so it might as well be the Queen, because elected presidents have too much power” (essentially the argument John Howard used to win the unloseable referendum on the republic). And so the combination of mad-brained monarchists and the apparently rational “we have to have a head of state might as well be the queen” middle-of-the-roaders, dooms us to another thousand years of the French-Scottish-German British Monarchy.

Look from time to time (not a lot of time) I mull over this issue when there is some media eruption over the sacred nature of the monarchy and how when people marry into it they (usually, except Fergie) acquire the magic DNA during a kiss on the balcony and become imbued with royalness themselves. I think of trying to explain to people that they are confused between the presidential style of executive government (US, Russia, France, China effectively, and, yes indeed, South American countries) and the Westminster style (Britain, Japan, Australia, Ireland, India). In the former the President holds the dual roles of head of government and head of state so an election sees the instant transfer of the embodiment of the state and its continuity to the winner of the election. In the latter the prime minister is there at the whim of parliament, and can be overthrown at any moment by a vote of no confidence in parliament or party room. In these countries then the continuity of the state, the person who hands the keys to the prime ministerial residence to the new leader, and who meets other leaders of countries as the symbolic embodiment of their own country, has to be represented by someone independent of the normal election cycle. Sometimes this is a monarch (Britain, Japan), sometimes a person elected to the role (Ireland, India) – and only to the role, taking absolutely no part, and there being no mechanism to take part, in the political issues and battles of the day.

But I tend to get tired about half way through that explanation and give up. If people don’t understand that there is absolutely no proposal by anyone to swich from Westminster govt to presidential govt in Australia then there is no way of reaching them.

But during the recent royal visit, as the Queen wandered around curing sickness by touching people or merely by being seen by them, I had a blinding epiphany. Why do we need a head of state at all? Or rather, to be more precise, why do we need a head of state who lives in govt house and puts the queen up in her spare bedroom and sits in the head of state box at Olympic Games? It is always confusing things (remember the arguments about arch-monarchist Howard going to the Games in Sydney). Essentially these days the PM accompanies the GG to any occasion where “Australia” is meeting “some other country”. The last time the GG played any role in sorting out a dispute in the actual political process and government of Australia was 1975 when unelected John Kerr so spectacularly injected himself into politics and corrupted our democracy for a decade.

Otherwise the GGs constitutional role has been restricted to making a batch of scones and handing a pen to the incoming PM to sign the pathetic oath of office (in which they essentially just promise to be PM). Then they all have a glass of best bubbly and stand around making small talk for 5 minutes before the PM goes off and does some real work. If we really do need someone to do that then there are any number of candidates around the country. Little old ladies, little old men, living in small country towns could be slipped a few dollars for scone mix every three years and the new PM and ministers could drop in to sign a stat dec to say they are going to be nice to poor people and not wreck the joint. I am referring of course to Justices of the Peace. Pick one at random out of a hat or a computer, ask for a volunteer. They don’t have much else to do except witness documents for the peasantry, they could easily do the same for the new government.

If there was some kind of constitutional crisis – and it is hard to picture what it might be, other than some even more complex variant on the last hung election – then I reckon any country JP could set the two opposing leaders down in the front parlour with a glass of home brew and bang their heads together until common sense prevailed. If it didn’t (and I only say this given the nature of the current Opposition Leader) then a committee composed of the Speaker of the House, the President of the Senate, and the Clerk of the House could be called in like a football review tribunal to make a final decision.

There you go. No foreign Queen. No Governor General. No elected President getting uppity. And a huge saving of money.

Some of which a grateful nation could send my way.

Politics by shockjockery

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by Media, politics • Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

The horrible lot (Bachmann, Perry, Cain and the rest) seeking the Republican nomination in the states, and the equally horrible lot trying to overthrow the government by bombast in Australia, have more in common with radio shock jocks than with the politicians of the past like Eisenhower and Kennedy, Menzies and Whitlam. It is politics by empty slogans, meaningless stunts, abuse of dissenters, invented “facts”, ideology. It is appeals to nationalism, religion, exceptionalism, xenophobia, class warfare, misogyny, racism, anti-environmentalism, and delusions of future riches.

It is a personal style characterised by aggression, refusal (and inability) to discuss issues, nastiness, lack of knowledge, bullying, stubborn repetition of a “fact” disproved, take no prisoners rhetoric, and a supreme confidence in one’s own self-worth.

Both shock jocks and these politicians of the new age are there to get people angry every morning and stay angry all day, and to consequently build audience share/voter numbers. If/when they are successful in doing this their competitors/political rivals will be obliged to push their own shockjockery to even lower levels, down down where the voters/listeners occur in numbers.

They could be called on their behaviour by other media outlets, more civilised politicians, intelligent members of the community, but they rarely are, perhaps because people are aware of the following they are generating, and scared that the wrath of those followers will be turned on them (for example climate scientists most recently).

There will be tears before bedtime I’m afraid. We have a number of examples of countries that have followed this spiral to the bottom. Takes a long time to recover.

That’s Entertainment

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by Media, politics • Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Long long ago, as the oldest of my Watermelon friends may just remember, there used to be talent competitions in community and media. At Eisteddfords performers performed, judges judged, winners grinned, losers were praised and encouraged, audiences applauded loudly in appreciation.

Then the geniuses who produce tv programs decided this was all wrong. In the same way as they changed motor sport broadcasts from reporting winners to reporting crashes, they changed talent shows from having the winners being the entertainment to having the losers providing it.

In order to do this the losers would be increasingly humiliated, disparaged, brought into public contempt, driven to despair, driven, if at all possible, to tears, a human car crash. As long as every possible human emotion could be wrung from the losers, the actual “winners” of a competition were essentially irrelevant.

As time has gone by networks have competed against each other to make the humiliation of losers more extreme and more protracted in each successive show. The public demand for such spectacles is, it seems, as strong now as when the Roman public were given opportunity, thumbs up or down, to decide on life and death in the arena. Not so much circuses that marked entertainment, and decline, of the Roman Empire, but loser shows.

And so it is with us, as ritual psychological disembowelling becomes the standard tv entertainment in all “reality” and “talent” shows that fill broadcast hours on all networks.

But that left all the political stuff that the networks had some kind of public obligation to report. People would, after all, probably want to know who was going to govern them after an election. But it was all so boring, like an old-fashioned Eisteddford. Grinning winners about to form government, losers with stiff upper lips ready to form a “loyal opposition”. “Loyal Opposition” indeed, what sort of television did that make?

Hard to stump tv executives for long. If politics wouldn’t come to reality tv, then reality tv would have to come to politics, or, more exactly be brought into politics. And so it began.

Began with the destabilisation of an existing leader. Unflattering photos, odd pieces of film, some past “scandal” uncovered, carefully edited bits of an interview played again and again. Then we might find a disgruntled and very junior member of the party to make a criticism, anonymously of course, and describe this as “voices”. A former leader may be called on to prove they are still relevant by voicing an opinion, pretending to inside knowledge they no longer have. Opposing politicians may be asked for their objective views on the leadership of the other party.

Then in stage two we go into full scale rumour creation, where two people having coffee are photographed through a long range lens in sinister fashion; where an innocent glance is scrutinised by “body language experts”; where some policy debate (a good thing, right?) is turned into a signal of raging dissent and rebellion. Phoney opinion polls are sought and presented in the most damaging light possible. “Numbers” are said to be counted. Soon all this has an effect. The party decides the instability created by the media has to stop (believing that firm action will end it, ha ha) and there is a change of leadership. The media will milk this for all it is worth, close up images of tears on faces (family gathered around, hopefully also with tears), interviews where questions are asked not for answers but for emotional response, families of defeated leaders followed to school or shops hoping for angry reactions.

And then suddenly all that good television is over. Time to start again, and the whole cycle is repeated with new leader, the political party discovering, belatedly, that changing leader doesn’t stop instability (a media creation in fact), the instability having nothing to do with who the actual leader is, but merely being the signal for the media to begin a new round of destabilisation. Sometimes, and this is a bonus, the media may decide to bring a former expelled contestant (sorry, leader) back into the Big Brother (sorry, Parliament) House, and the twist will be that they may be able to gain full reinstatement, deposing the one who deposed them. Human emotion in spades. Hours, days, weeks of good television.

Neither the contestants (sorry politicians) themselves, nor the viewing audience (sorry, voters) have any more control over this process than the contestants and viewers of Survivor or Greatest Race or Beauty and the Geek or the X Factor. All are puppets, manipulated at the whims of directors and producers.

A lot of contestants and politicians, will be damaged mentally and professionally in the process, and democracy itself is the Biggest Loser. But Hey.

That’s Entertainment.

Let us all rejoice, rejoice

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by Atheism • Tags: , , , , ,

Did you see that some Christian school in Australia had rewritten the second verse of the national anthem to include a whole lot of stuff about some god or other? Look I know national anthems are crap. “our home is girt by sea”? Sounds like something Monty Python might write. And grown up people singing about a “gracious queen”. Dunno about America. They seem to have several different national anthems all of which have to be sung while clutching heart. Can’t remember anything about 183 of the other 184 anthems – they all appear to be identical. No, the only decent one is that of France (of course) – perhaps we could all take turns borrowing it.

Still, humble as it may be, our anthem, though a poor thing, is our own, and I don’t want christians messing with it as part of their brain washing (sorry, schooling, don’t know what got into me there) program. A thin edge of the wedge if ever I saw one.

Consider America. One day a sane, rational sort of country, civilised, creative, making movies, going to moon, that sort of thing. Then some idiot decided to add “in god we trust” to the coinage (rather like Germans adding “god with us” to army belt buckles). Next thing you know you have prayers in schools, ten commandments in courthouses, presidential candidates outdoing each other in carrying the biggest bible, evangelists taking over the armed forces, 99% of the people believing the world is 10,000 years old, and Rick Perry.

But I have a solution. The British have a law that no one can sing any verse about the gracious queen except the first (the rest consisting of all kinds of embarrassing rubbish about the sun never setting on lesser breeds without the law). So, we just pass the same law. No one can remember our second verse anyway (god knows where the christians found it), and blocking it would save all those excruciating scenes of footballers opening and closing mouths silently looking like those clown heads in a sideshow.

There, problem solved. If they complain threaten to change our anthem to the one about sheep stealing. Bit hard to get god into that one. Unless it’s the holy ghost who may be heard down by the billabong …

I really don’t want Jim Wallace as PM. Or some failed seminary student.

Hundred years war

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by Economics • Tags: , , , , , , ,

Annoyingly can’t find my copy to check (why is it that you can always find all the other books except the precise one you want, whichever that one is?) but there is a moment in “The Longest Day” which is relevant to the politics of the day. All day on June 6 1944 fighting has raged on the beaches of Normandy, and up the frighteningly steep cliffs. By the end of that long day a few of the allied troops have got past the last line of German coastal defences and have emerged on to the farm land at the top of the cliffs. They pause, exhausted, and then an officer calls them to move on out and into France. The battle in effect is over, and what comes now is the consolidation, the digging of defensive positions, the establishment of infrastructure to get the heavy equipment moving, planes landing, communications working.

Was reminded of this the other day when Obama, some three years late, gave a speech in which he suggested that since America’s budget problems were in no small part the result of the slashing of taxes for the rich begun by Reagan and continued by his disciples, it would be good if, pretty please, the rich could begin paying just a little bit more of their obscenely bloated wealth for the common good of the country. Just a little bit you understand, nowhere near what they had been happily paying in Reagan’s time.

The response was both outraged and depressingly predictable, Obama, said the mouthpieces of the super rich, was engaging in “class warfare” …

… Had to pause at that point, get my breath back, taken away by the astonishing audacity and hypocrisy of that response.

Right, back now.

The period since that June day has been marked by new battles in two phases. In the first phase the kind of world that the American, British and Canadian soldiers; and, on other battlefields, Australian and New Zealand soldiers, had fought for, was gradually brought into being. As I’ve written before, there were moves to better support the old and the poor, provide better health and education services for all, do something about the degrading environment, develop a society in which the disparities of wealth were not as great as they had been.

Think of it, if you can (since I am forced into a topsy turvy world here by my stubbornness in sticking with my original, poorly chosen, metaphor), as the German Army invading France, introducing good German customs into a country needing social reform. The German Army, in this Looking Class (sorry, Glass) War, being the good guys.

But now the Allies (bad guys remember) have landed on the beaches. Have brutally pushed back social, economic reforms in America, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. Forced the progressive back up the cliffs pushed through the last defences, emerged triumphant on the cliff tops. Now for the digging in and consolidation of their gains.

So now we see nonsense like the “class warfare” tag, applied by the super rich 1% against the poorer 99% and accepted, unquestioningly, as a valid talking point by the media, their heavy equipment rolling across the countryside in support. We see court cases to destroy plain packaging in cigarettes, deposits on bottles; we see massive advertising campaigns to prevent action on coal seam gas, poker machines, mining resource taxes, carbon price; we see push back on progressive taxation, club opening hours, labelling of alcohol, national parks, workplace laws, public education and health, voting rights, and so on. The rich officer class and their willing foot soldiers are trying to make sure that they will hold this ground forever, make it impossible for progressives to fight back, lock in place the most regressive policies seen in 100 years.

It’s been a long day, but they seem to have won.

Downhill Racers

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

Well, the presidential race is on again in America (astonishing that it takes well over a year to find out which of the few people rich enough to try is going to be “elected” to serve the corporations) and the Republicans have once again scraped together a motley crew of nutters, ideologues and religious maniacs from whom to choose their candidate.

The whole process of course is utterly alien to those of us in this simple bucolic political world of Australia with its primitive and platonic ideas of democracy. The candidates seem like creatures from another planet, or an alien society in which chanting shamans analyse the entrails of goats to decide their leader and policies. So let me translate what the race is currently about.

Imaginary being’s preferences
Candidate 1 – “god likes me more than he does you”; C2 “oh no he doesn’t he likes me best”; C3 “no, he wants ME to win, told me”; C4 “he was talking to me you moron, I am god’s chosen president”.

Living in shoebox
C1- All children will live in poverty in shoeboxes by 2013. Not rich children, obviously; C2 All children living in poverty and parents sold into slavery; C3 All children in poverty, slave parents, grandparents allowed to starve to death; C4 All children in poverty, slave parents, starving grandparents, no medical care for anyone. Except the rich, obviously.

Furriners (1)
C1 – I will build a brick wall 1000km long and 20m high along Mexican border to stop asylum seekers; C2 Build a wall, patrol with helicopters with machine guns with orders to kill; C3 Wall, helicopters, drones on Mexican side to shoot rockets at anyone walking towards wall; C4 Wall, helicopters, drones, and scorched earth for 100km on Mexican side of border.

Furriners (2)
C1 – Will bomb any country that has any terrorists; C2 Bomb any country with terrorists and who won’t sell resources to America; C3 Bomb any country with terrorists that won’t give resources to America; C4 Bomb any country with or without terrorists that won’t give resources to America.

This land is our land
C1 – More oil wells – offshore, onshore, north, south, national parks, everywhere; C2 More oil wells and remove all environmental protection laws; C3 More oil, no laws, ensure cheap disposal of toxic wastes in rivers, oceans, air; C4 more oil, no laws, toxic disposal, compulsory increase of CO2 production from all sources.

Guns
C1 – More guns; C2 A lot more guns; C3 Compulsory guns for every adult; C4 compulsory multiple guns for every citizen from birth.

Schools
C1 – No teaching evolution in schools; C2 No teaching evolution or environment; C3 No teaching evolution environment ethnic studies; C4 No evolution, environment, ethnics – only classes in religion permitted

Unions
C1 – All union leaders arrested and sent to Guantanamo Bay; C2 Ditto; C3 Ditto; C4 Ditto.

Hmm, on second thoughts, is this really that much different to the process by which we got Tony Abbott as future Prime Minister?

Unsuitable suggestion

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by politics • Tags: , , , ,

Had an odd thought this week as I looked at the grim-faced Republicans sitting on their hands through Obama’s speech; the waving hands and anger across the chamber of the House of Commons; the government-wrecking activities in Australia. Suits are the problem.

Well, just one of the problems, clearly, but you have to start somewhere. Picture those male politicians, all round the world, in the dress uniform of dark suits (sometimes light for the young at heart), white business shirts, subdued ties. It’s the kind of uniform that pitches armies against each other. It is formal, and uncomfortable, and dehumanising, you can’t relax and think, and it gets red-faced men in suits shouting at other red-faced men in suits. Can’t tell them apart, they are just opposition suits (or indeed suits from opposing countries).

But more than that the suits set the politicians into the dominant paradigm of society. They are adopting the uniform of big business, of the rich and powerful. See the politicians at a meeting of one of the business unions (they don’t call them that of course, it’s all “groups” and “associations”, but they are unions), try to work out who is who. Are these people who work with their hands? Sleep on streets? Get stuck in low paid jobs and then get sacked when a company moves offshore? Of course they are not.

Nor are they women. Oh the women do their best with pant suits or tailored jackets and skirts (and will get hammered by the media whatever they choose, and in whatever colour), but see them in a group photo of a new cabinet, or at an international conference of the leaders of countries, they stick out like sore thumbs, civilians in a uniformed world.

It’s all quite different when politicians take part in some kind of community event and wear casual clothes. Can’t tell the difference between men and women then (well, you can, but you know what I mean). Two politicians from opposing parties in jeans and tee shirts can happily cook sausages side by side. Politicians can go to football matches or agricultural shows, mix invisibly with, talk to, all the people wearing footy jumpers, or board shorts, buy hot dogs for children. After disasters politicians help clean up flooded houses, take food to bushfire victims, put rubbish in trucks after cyclones.

Well, you can see where I am going with this. A complete ban on suits for politicians. Casual clothes at all times in parliament, in the office, in the street. Any who don’t like it are obviously unsuited to the job.

Oh it won’t be easy. Remember the fuss when Obama was filmed not long after his election on a weekend in the oval office, without a jacket and tie, sleeves rolled up ready for a lot of work. Outcry that he was “demeaning the office of President” ignoring, hypocritically (it was the start of 2 years of astonishing hypocrisy) all of the other presidents who had been photographed in casual clothes in the office.

So there will be opposition, especially from the ruling classes in business and media, concerned that the politicians will no longer be clearly identified as part of their team. But as the public sees better behaviour in parliament, feels more comfortable talking to politicians, sees leader of countries in conflict settling differences over a beer on the beach, and as women feel more comfortable entering the boy’s club, they will quickly wonder how we ever put up with besuited politicians.

On second thoughts perhaps the other problems in our politics will just sort themselves out.