verging_on_random

Overrun by Muslims

Remember how Pauline Hanson got our attention back in 1996? Australia was “in danger of being overrun by Asians”, she whined in her maiden speech to parliament. That caused significant damage to the way we were perceived in Asia but at least we could say with some justification that one ignorant woman’s ranting didn’t represent the views of a nation.

No such luck with contemporary perceptions. They’ve largely been created, and are certainly whipped along, by our prime minister and a handful of his key ministers.

That at least is my tentative opinion after a short trip to Singapore. When the cab driver from the airport found out I was Australian the first questions he asked were about the number of Muslims who lived in my neighbourhood. He was obviously under the impression that Australia had a big ‘Muslim problem’. So while I was there I made it my business to ask as many people as I could what their views were. Most of the replies were that yes, Australia had a big Muslim problem, by which they meant that Muslims were anti-social criminals making everyone else’s lives miserable. A few who had visited Australia said they knew this wasn’t the case, but confirmed that it was a widespread misconception in Singapore.

When you think about it, it’s hardly surprising. Our prime minister reads endless lectures to ‘leaders of the Muslim community’, whoever they are and whatever it is, telling them to control their ‘firebrands’. Retards like Peter Debnam constantly talk about ‘middle eastern thugs’ who’ve ‘taken control of the streets’. A few journalists are worryingly obsessed with Lebanese gang rapists. Sensible people here tune out this endless static so it’s easy to forget that when it gets reported overseas, people take it at face value.

It probably never occurs to the people of Singapore and similar nations that politicians would deliberately foster racial tension within a country for cheap political advantage. Then again, until Howard hit town it never occurred to me either.

One thought came to me as I was writing this: the deliberate nurturing of xenophobia within the federal government seems to be limited to a few individuals, most notably Howard and Ruddock. Might it be that the rest still have a spark of human decency and can’t bring themselves to join in their leaders’ contemptible behaviour? If so, their cowardice in not speaking out while Howard has created this divided society is every bit as despicable as his opportunism.

In memory of a genuinely great Australian

Trevor Allan died at the weekend. He was 80 and died peacefully at home, according to the report. I hope that it was so.

I’ll leave others to write about his feats as one of the greatest rugby players ever to represent Australia. I knew him afterwards, when he was in his 50s and commenting on rugby for the ABC. His son, Glenn, was in an under 16 cricket team that I managed. Trevor turned up on Saturday mornings every now and then to watch. If you didn’t follow rugby you wouldn’t have had a clue that he had any special claim to greatness. He was just a good bloke with a terrific sense of humour and a wonderfully balanced perspective on life.

Glenn used to play in the senior team that I captained - we encouraged juniors to play in the senior comp as well - and one day we struggled to get 11 players on the field. Somebody, I forget who, persuaded Trevor to put the whites on. I was the worst bowler ever to bowl a ball in a proper game of cricket but for some reason that I can’t remember I gave myself an over that day. The batsman smashed it about two feet off the ground, so hard that it would have gone across the boundary for 6 except that Trevor Allan launched himself horizontally and caught it. He was pleased and happy for me and the team, dismissing any suggestion that he’d done something pretty amazing.

Glenn grew up and became a primary school teacher, which I also thought was pretty wonderful, given the tendency of the rugby mafia to shoe-horn family members into jobs as lawyers or company directors. Trevor just loved his family with a simple trusting love that told the kids he’d support them whatever they did … a thought that many parents give lip service to but few live up to. I lost touch with Glenn over the years, as you do, but I reckon there’s a lot of kids in the world who feel proud of being taught by Mr Allan.

If anyone had suggested that he have a state funeral Trevor would have roared with laughter. For somebody who had achieved so much he was the least pretentious man imaginable. Some who have had far more elaborate public honours heaped upon them at their death deserved it much less then Trevor Allan, but the manner of his going is completely suitable for a man who to me represented Australian values better than any inane poster on a noticeboard.

Vale Trevor … I know that I’m only one of thousands who will be mourning you tonight and wishing I could grace our society as you did.

These are derangerous times

This was supposed to be the New American Century but it’s falling in a heap after a few short years. And the people who proclaimed it, who gloried in it, the people who boasted of how they couldn’t give a shit about anyone else, the people who puffed up their chests and cried “We won the Cold War baby”, the people who went ballistic after the attack on the World Trade Centre because someone would dare do that to the USA!!!, the people who in short convinced themselves that they were god’s new chosen ones and it was their destiny to rule the world - these people aren’t happy. In fact they’re veeerrry pissed off.

In their fury and frustration they’re lashing out anywhere they can, revealing in the process the depths of their obsessions, neuroses and fantasies.

One recent example is their reaction to a speech by US Senator Jim Webb, given in response to Bush’s state of the union address to Congress last week. In typical fashion the neo-con baboons couldn’t care less what he actually said. All they care about is that he had the gall to criticise the Bushistas’ world view. As far as they’re concerned that makes Webb a virtual traitor, fair game to be vilified any way you can find.

The trouble is Webb’s newly-elected to Congress after beating a Republican who was touted as a future president. He’s a bona fide Vietnam war hero, at least until his enemies find a way of questioning his record. As far as they’ve been able to discover he never took drugs or had sex with someone he shouldn’t have and they haven’t had time to invent anything yet, so Webb’s a bit difficult to attack on a personal level. But that hasn’t stopped them trying.

Here’s a summary of one such attack. Bear in mind that this isn’t some obscure blogger writing who’ll get 3 readers tops, this is something linked by a neo-con talk show host whose blog has a huge readership. It claims to be written by an ‘active duty officer with more than 25 years of service’, even though he’s too shy to actually give his name. The blogosphere is infested with people who seek to add credibility to their views by claiming to be soldiers on active service but decline to give their names. Perhaps they’re all modest. But let’s read how this supposed officer, writing for the masses in an article that’s supposed to be taken seriously, goes about discrediting Senator Webb.

Well for one thing, he disposes of any idea that Webb is a responsible legislator giving a well-considered view on Iraq. Not al all:

What I saw was a simmering cauldron of arrogance, anger and resentment. His eyes were not the eyes of a serious thinker but those of a man who is clearly very, very angry and his words bear this out.

Apparently anonymous officer thinks it’s impossible to be angry and think seriously at the same time. But wait, it gets a lot better. Why is Webb angry, do you think? Is it because of the American soldiers being killed in Iraq (of course we can discount the possibility that it’s because of the Iraqis being killed in Iraq, hardly anyone in the USA seems to even notice them)? Is it because he believes President Bush to be an incompetent idiot? Nooooo … nothing as straightforward as that.

But on close inspection, something about Senator Webb is very disturbing. Perhaps it harkens all the way back to his midshipman days in Annapolis and a simple boxing match lost. You see, James Webb lost a boxing match to a man he clearly despises, Oliver North. Webb, as chronicled by Robert Timberg in his best-selling book, The Nightingale’s Song, was heavily favored to beat North in the Brigade boxing championships but lost. Timberg claims that Webb believed he was intentionally denied the title by poor preparation from his coach, or more accurately the boxing coach made sure Ollie was better prepared to beat him! Regardless, Webb believes he was wronged and today we can see this streak of vengeance in him.

Take your time … read it over once or twice. Oliver North, if you’re trying to place him, is an ex-colonel and convicted criminal who got tied up in illegal arms sales back in the Reagan years. I would have thought a lot of people despise Ollie North, although anonymous officer clearly doesn’t. What anonymous officer would have you believe is that because Webb lost a boxing match to North more than 30 years ago, Webb’s lusting for vengeance, which he gets by … ummm … bad-mouthing the Bush Administration.

Well that, if true, makes Senator Webb one very sick puppy, along with everyone who voted for him. So anonymous officer must have some evidence that backs up this bizarre claim, right? Well no, actually, anonymous officer doesn’t even try. He Just Knows - he can see it in Jim’s eyes.

In other words the whole article is a crock, but that’s not the worst part. The truly scary thing is that somebody would choose to write such an absurd rant without understanding how retarded it made them look and somebody like Hugh Hewitt would consider it worth publishing on a site that pretends to be a source of serious political analysis. It’s truly scary because this article is the product of a mind that’s literally deranged - a mind that dwells in an alternative universe where there is no need to arrange facts in a logical order to justify a conclusion. In this alternative universe, all you have to do to make something true is believe in it.

Unfortunately there are occasional signs that this kind of mental illness extends all the way up the Bush administration to the very top. And that, I think, is why so many people correctly rate George W Bush as the greatest threat to global peace in the world today.

Don’t wear out your flags

Much as I would love to stay and sing along to Men at Work a few times, the need to earn a living conquers all. I’m off to Singapore for the weekend to do some teaching. On double time, did someone ask? Hahahahaha you guys crack me up, honestly. The notion of ‘ordinary working hours’ went out the window for academics a looooong time ago.

Be back Tuesday … or Monday if the wait-listed flight comes good. Maybe they’ll have fireworks at the Embassy.

Double exposure

The whingers have been out in force over the last few days, all over the interruptions to their comfortable lives caused by bushfires and water shortages. Yeah these inconveniences have something to do with the worst drought since European settlement but that’s immaterial, The Authorities have screwed up again.

Exhibit 1: electricity supply to Melbourne failed just because the worst fire in memory cut the transmission lines. Proof positive that the Victorian government are a mob of slackarses.  They should have two transmission lines, just in case one fails. And a few more power stations would be a good idea too, on standby in case some of the others break down.

Exhibit 2: Sydney faces chronic water shortages, due to an unprecedented drought that nobody predicted. Doesn’t matter, the government should have built more dams 20 years ago, to hold water that no-one in those days ever thought would be needed, just to ensure that people today would be guaranteed the right to wash the 4WD whenever they damn well felt like it.
Exhibit 3: The F3 was cut by another bushfire on Sunday, meaning that some people’s travel arrangements were so disrupted they were a whole 12 hours late in getting to their destination. Once again, people are calling for the government’s blood. Why, they ask, aren’t there two freeways heading north from Sydney so that if one is cut people can just switch to the other one?

I’ll refrain from making the obvious comments that if these are the worst hardships people ever have to put up with in their lives, they’d rightly be envied by 90% of the world’s population (and by a significant number of Australians living in poverty). The point I want to make is that these complaints signify something comparatively new in Australian society … something which is also rather repellent. It’s the assumption that people have an entitlement for things to work perfectly, all the time, and if it doesn’t happen then by god, somebody must pay.

Two things about this. Number one, it’s totally unrealistic and completely divorced from the way rational people organise their own  lives. Not many of us run two cars, fridges, washing machines and so on just so we’ll be able to soldier on if one breaks down. Sensible people run one, knowing that occasionally it will stop working, giving us an excuse to use bad language and whine about the problems of getting a repairman these days.

Second observation: expecting a faultless level of performance from public infrastructure is completely incompatible with the lust for efficiency that is a hallmark of the great god privatisation. If people seriously want competition - by which they almost always mean price competition - then they have to accept compromises in quality. No sane power supplier is going to incur the huge costs of a duplicate power grid just to overcome the once-every-20-year risk of the first one going down. Or even a once-every-six months risk. It’s much more rational to accept a certain level of unreliability in the service and keep prices to the levels that customers expect.

Unfortunately this expectation of perfection can lead to very anti-social behaviour. Who hasn’t observed road rage from people subjected to trivial delays? Watch some customers in a supermarket checkout - their body language screams pure homicidal fury if they have to queue. It all creates an unpleasant atmosphere in communal spaces, marked by anger and impatience and the urge to find fault with others.

I’m glad I live in the bush, where my candles and gas lamp are ready to hand and if my car breaks down, I know the neighbours will be happy to give me a lift.

God bless America (and screw everyone else)

I try not to be reflexively anti-American but I do think there are good objective reasons for the global wave of anti-Americanism illustrated in a recent survey. Despite the rhetoric, despite the carefully-nurtured public image as the leader of the free world and moral champion of democracy against the forces of evil, the evidence is that the Bush Administration is concerned exclusively with the interests of one group of people: citizens of the US of A. To protect those interests, the Bushistas are prepared to ruin the lives of countless millions who happen to live in the wrong countries.

The invasion and occupation of Iraq have so far been the cause of hundreds of thousands of deaths and an even greater number of people being maimed. There can hardly be a family in Iraq that has not suffered the pain of bereavement. Millions of Iraqis have been made homeless. None of this seems to matter to the Bushistas. They care so little about the human consequences of their blundering violence in the War on Terror that they don’t even bother trying to keep count of deaths and injuries and refugees. They’re simply not relevant data.

In case somebody is extreme enough to argue that Muslims all share some kind of collective guilt for September 11 so they deserve what’s coming to them, the Iraqi occupation has seen the local Christians treated as harshly as anyone. According to those notorious terrorist-sympathising lefties from the Church of England, 350,000 Iraqi Christians have fled Iraq since the invasion. But for the Bushistas these facts are just not on the radar - the Iraqi occupation is justified because it’s in American interests, period.

During the second world war, German occupiers on a few occasions killed local citizens in reprisal for the killing of a German soldier: 10 for 1, or when the monster Heydrich was assassinated, 100 to 1 from memory. These comparatively isolated incidents are rightly remembered as evidence of the moral bankruptcy of the Nazi regime. Yet a similar rationale has marked the Bushistas’ response to September 11. In some ways it’s even more unnerving because at least reprisal killings in hot blood reflect an instinct for revenge that’s a common response to deliberate violence in the human race. In the case of the Bushistas, kill ratios of 100:1 or more are simply accepted with a shrug. They’re not deliberately inflicted nor are they especially regretted. They just are.

Ever since 2001 and the chest-beating childishness of ‘You’re either with us or against us’, the Bushistas have demonstrated a total disregard for the opinions or welfare of any other nation on earth. And now, of course, they are showing the same disregard for the opinions of their own Congress and the majority of the American people.

In these circumstances it’s not at all surprising that only 29% of people around the world think the USA is a positive influence in the world. Indeed it’s a wonder the figure isn’t lower; no doubt there is a lingering affection and respect for the nation that we all once thought we knew.

As one of the invaders and occupiers, what has Australia done to recognise the plight of refugees fleeing the sectarian violence that we helped unleash? Well we’ve spent $250 million on a new detention centre on Christmas Island … because we decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.

And the US intake this year for the Iraqi refugees who owe their misery overwhelmingly to Bush’s invasion?

500.

The price that the USA will pay for their blatant lack of interest in anybody’s welfare other than their own will be a heavy one, and it will continue to be paid for many years. Its claims to have some special moral standing in the world community have perhaps been extinguished forever.

This will be the legacy of the incompetent ideologue who today presented the latest version of The State of the Bush Alternative Reality.

If a tree falls in a forest …

If a tree falls in a forest and there’s no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? Or more to the point of this entry, if the organiser of  a rock festival asks patrons not to bring flags and nobody reports it in the media, does it represent the greatest insult to the memory of our fallen diggers since those bitches splashed blood on the steps of the Anzac Memorial?

Residents of NSW who get all their news from either the Sydney Morning Herald or the evening news/7.30 Report on the ABC would have spent yesterday blissfully ignorant of the storm of hysteria generated by the Daily Terror’s front page bullshit story about the Big Day Out ‘banning’ the flag at the Sydney event on Friday. Yet News Ltd devotees who listen to talkback radio (and watch commercial TV news I assume) would have been under the impression that it was the biggest national crisis since Christmas (go here if you’d like to read the level of  hysteria).

I can’t say anything about the flag non-story that hasn’t already been said with a lot more passion, but the exercise does illustrate how the media can influence public opinion. Pundits spend too much time worrying about ‘media bias’, as if millions of readers will be influenced by the expressed opinions of the columnists and editorial writers. I think that’s a minor problem compared to the impact of the ‘news’ stories that editors choose to run in the first place, starkly demonstrated by News Ltd poking the xenophobia ants’ nest yesterday.

The same thing applies to industrial relations. If the media decides to run lots of stories between now and the election about fathers-of-five sacked without compensation and cute 16 year olds whose hourly rate’s been cut in half by some sleazy-looking prick who declined to comment, IR will be a major issue in the election. If, on the other hand, they get bored and decide instead to run stories about middle eastern thugs trying to steal the plans of parliament house or kids getting dirty messages from strangers on MySpace, Labor will struggle to get any traction with IR at all.

Thus does the MSM influence public opinion … it’s not the pundits we should worry about but the editors and sub-editors deciding what stories to run.

Beyond ‘left’ and ‘right’

I’m a mild-mannered tolerant individual but I’ve had a gutful. I’m sick of reading facile socio-political ‘analysis’ that assumes there are two sets of opposing opinions in the world, the left and the right. I’m even sicker of being tagged a ‘leftie’ because I oppose the occupation of Iraq, or condemn David Hicks’ incarceration in a concentration camp, or support a re-examination of the USA-Australian alliance.

As an academic I understand why it’s sometimes convenient to use simplified taxonomies to construct models. But good scholarship never loses sight of the simplifications, and brings the complexities of the real world back into the discussion when asked to recommend practical action.

Here’s the piece that’s set me off on this latest rant. Sample extract:

Why is it that apologies for a militant Islam which stands for everything the liberal left is against come from the liberal left?

I have no idea who is supposed to constitute the ‘liberal left’. It implies this absurd idea that anybody who expresses an opinion on public affairs must have taken out membership of some ideological society that dictates their views about everything. Hear one opinion -> you know which ideological group they’re in -> you can predict their views about anything.

Well I call that bullshit. Let me check my liberal leftist credentials against Nick Cohen’s stereotype:

1. Do I apologise for militant Islam? No. I do maintain that characterising it as the work of lunatics and psychopaths is a grave mistake and that if we are going to deal with it constructively, we first have to understand what really drives it.
2. Would I hear a leftish postmodern theorist defend the exploitation of women in traditional cultures? No. I would explain why I disagreed.
3. Did I deny the existence of Serb concentration camps? Well no, I expressed no opinion on the issue. Not having looked at the evidence I would not have felt qualified to express a view.
4. Why is Palestine a cause for [me], but not China, Sudan, Zimbabwe, the Congo or North Korea? I’m not sure what Cohen means by ‘a cause’, but it implies that these are ‘problem’ countries, and therefore outsiders should seek to interfere in their internal affairs. For Cohen’s information I’m a bit of a conservative isolationist who believes that Australia should keep its nose out of all other nations’ internal affairs unless they are threatening our interests by breaking international laws or agreements. I know this is not a stereotypical ‘leftist’ view and I couldn’t care less.
5. After the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington why were you as likely to read that a sinister conspiracy of Jews controlled American or British foreign policy in a superior literary journal as in a neo-Nazi hate sheet? Well I don’t know Nick … I suspect you would have to be a bit obsessive to go looking for minority views like this in the first place. To suggest that they represent a consensus on the part of some mainstream group called ‘the left’ is ridiculous.
6. Why after the 7/7 attacks on London did leftish rather than right-wing newspapers run pieces excusing suicide bombers who were inspired by a psychopathic theology from the ultra-right? I don’t know mate, did they? I have to say I don’t know what a ‘leftish’ newspaper is anyway, but are you suggesting that because they ran some op-ed pieces with one eccentric view that therefore represents a consensus on ‘the left’? Well mate forgive me if I say I hope I never have you on a jury weighing evidence that could send me to gaol.

I suspect that Nick is an elitist. I suspect that it never occurs to him that millions of ordinary people have thoughtful opinions on public affairs, even though we never appear on SBS or whatever the pommy equivalent is. I suspect Nick has fallen into the trap of believing that geo-politics is defined by the tired and tedious bunch of self-regarding pundits who infest the mainstream media, and whose views are indeed as predictable as a major party politician’s.

The late great C Northcote Parkinson pointed out how one of the defining characteristics of the English-speaking peoples is our ability to reduce politics to a football game. When everybody has to sit in one of two hostile teams, facing each other across the demilitarised zone, debate becomes a piece of cake. You don’t have to listen to the arguments, you just look to see whose side someone’s on. Label the two sides ‘left’ and ‘right’ and all you have to do is listen to somebody’s key words for 30 seconds on any given subject, then you can launch yourself into a gallant defence or a virulent attack depending which team they’ve demonstrated they’re on.

Parkinson contrasted this admirably straightforward arrangement with the European system, where politicians sit in a U-shaped parliament and it’s impossible to tell who’s making sense without paying attention to what they’re saying. As he sagely suggests this is a hopelessly complicated process, even without the added complication that they insist on doing it in French or some other barbaric language.

Well unfortunately I’m a bit of a European. Moreover, most of the people I know who have developed political views are equally hard to pigeon-hole within the traditional left/right spectrum. One opposes abortion and privatisation - what a weirdo! And another one is all for individualisation in the labour market but opposes the Iraqi occupation. In fact the more you explore these people’s opinions, the more you understand that they represent an infinite diversity of permutations and combinations, the very opposite of the neat one-dimensional left/right spectrum that informs most commentary in public discourse.

So screw you Nick Cohen, together with all other members of the punditocracy who patronisingly pretend to know my views about everything on the basis of my opinion about a single issue. Let’s forget this meaningless left/right crap, or at least reserve it for its original context of beliefs about ownership of the means of production in society, and let us confront issues on their merits without resorting to silly name-calling.

Sheikh al-Hanson

I love this bloke. He’s kind of an Islamic Pauline.

Shock showdown … Sheik Taj el-Din al-Hilaly is planning a challenge on three Labor seats, including that held by Premier Morris Iemma.

Bring it on! Let’s see how much support he’s actually got … and whether the Labor Party can articulate some realistic and responsible attitudes towards Islam in Australia in lieu of the bluster and bullshit they’ve relied upon to date.

Or will Labor wimp it like Howard did and say ‘Oh well we’ve never called Muslims scum of the earth terrorist-lovers but it’s a sign of a healthy democracy that other people (not us you understand) can say that … freedom of speech and all that you know … and actually we can understand why someone might say that … not that we ever have

It’s all one ‘Big Brother’ now

This is just plain weird.

You probably heard about that kid in the US who was kidnapped four years ago and got discovered by accident when the cops were investigating the kidnap of another boy. Anyway there’s been a lot of interest in it in the USA because the kid wasn’t locked in a cellar or anything and people are curious about why he didn’t just go up to a cop or ring his parents and tell them what was going on. He was only discovered a week ago and he hasn’t told anyone what happened to him yet.

Anyway I reckon he and his mum and dad (step-dad I read somewhere, whatever) have a certain amount of private business to go through for a while. But they got an invitation to go on TV … with Oprah no less.

So they agree. Guess what? Oprah, being the iconic investigative reporter that she is, asks probing questions like “Did you get sexually abused?” The parents say “Oh yeah we reckon he was,” even though in the same breath they say the kid hasn’t told them anything yet.

Now half the country’s got its knickers in a twist because the kid’s life is likely to be ruined by this stigma of being labelled the victim of a pedophile (or a willing participant, according to the innuendo of at least one slimy grub of a right-wing commentator in the TV show that he presents from under his rock). And guess whose fault it is? Oprah’s.

Yep, Oprah shouldn’t have asked such personal questions. Apparently she should have asked the kid if he was into emo music, and what he thought of Bush’s Iraq strategy, anything except what happened during the four years he was living with this guy who allegedly kidnapped him. Cos that’s the secret to a successful talk show, not asking the questions that all the viewers are curious about.

Read the comments on the story … it doesn’t even seem to occur to half the commenters that the moronic parents could have - should have - refused point blank to go anywhere near a TV studio or a reporter. Or that they could have - should have - told her the sexual abuse question was out of line. Nope, in the USA an appearance on Oprah is a Royal Command, you don’t say no. And if she asks you a question, you sure don’t tell her to go to hell, you answer it. You front up without a thought what it might mean for your son and you spill your guts to the American people because it’s the culmination of a lifelong dream. Having that live audience hoot and holler at you might finally give meaning to your miserable existence.

The kid’s name is Shawn. He must have learnt a thing or two about surviving on his wits over the last four years. Run, Shawn, run!

What a fucked-up country.