Consistent and Principled

Only 6 countries supported Israel’s right to construct a “security barrier” in a UN general Assembly vote. One of them was Australia.

Mr Downer commented saying ” the Government took a clear, consistent and principled position in the vote on the UN General Assembly’s resolution about the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) ruling on Israel’s security barrier yesterday.” (http://www.foreignminister.gov.au/releases/2004/fa0109b_04.html

When 6 countries say no and the rest say yes, one has to wonder what principles these are. However there is an undeniable consistency.

The Federal Multicultural Affairs Minister – Gary Hardgrave – has today declared that Hansonism is dead and that the ALP were the reason for its rise. (see: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/07/27/1090693963128.html?oneclick=true.)

Why? Because “[t]he Labor Party created division in society, and cut people into tribes and funded them differently, and created a sense of resentment.”

I’m sure you all find this laughable and it is an obvious sign that the Libs are trying to win the Multicultural vote in their election campaign.

It’s interesting none the less. Howard used Hanson to gain considerable political leverage. The previous Keating government had taken huge steps forward on race related issues. For a little while there it was not ok to say racist things. While many Australians where just aching to do so I see this as desirable because there was a clear message that this was unacceptable.

So Hanson spoke up, she made outrageously racist comments and the Prime Miniature simply replied by saying “it’s cool – that’s free speech”. But as we all know with freedom comes responsibility – Hanson was irresponsible.

So I guess I draw your attention to this for a few reasons. Firstly it is a follow up on my comments about ATSIC.

Secondly it’s amazing how sort the electorate’s memory is.

Thirdly it’s a clear indication of the Libs philosophical background – some thing that seems to have been popping up a little more of late and something I think they have shied away from in the past. The Libs are unashamedly Individualist. No surprises there. The old metaphor I’ve always liked is that life is like a race. The individualists put everyone on the same starting line and have the world sprint champion on the same line as a little kid with no formal running experience the idea being that everyone has the same opportunity. Obviously the little kid will never win. I much prefer the Stawell Gift – a handy cap race.

Finally, I think that Hanson actually had a point. In many ways One Nation and the Greens had similar concerns. Let’s put the One Nation racism aside for a moment (and, in reality this is simply not possible as it is far too big an issue to just overlook). Let’s also put aside the fact that Hanson was/is just plain dumb. Let’s look at the other policies. Protectionism, neglect of rural and regional Australia and an anti-economic rationalism. While the Green’s policies are considerably more complex (we all remember Hanson’s “well just print more money” comment) and their motivations are often different it is important to remember that these are legitimate concerns that are not addressed by either major party. There is a “market” out there for people who probably should vote green but in the end the Green’s are labeled and in reality they wear that label with pride. They get called elates – and well, perhaps they are – just not in the way the term is used.

I like the comment at the end of the same article: “The director of the Centre for Immigration and Multicultural Studies at the Australian National University, Dr James Jupp, said Mr Hardgrave’s comments were a revival of the divisive debates of the 1980s.

“It sounds dangerously close to bullshit, I would say,” Dr Jupp said”

I think that just about sums it up.

God damn it!! Why won’t you people engage with me?!?

So… I was lucky enough to meet with Miriam Solomon the other day and we had an interesting discussion.

For me and my analysis of the world and its’ ills the problem is largely the mode of production (yes, I have a strong Marxist grounding). So the world is a horrible place and this is because we live in an epoch of neoliberalism where rationalism has lead to the dominance of the dollar. I’m a historical determinist and our current epoch is under pinned by its’ economic dominance. This is why we invade Iraq; this is why we don’t invest as much as we should in health and education.

There is sexism and racism in the world but this has an economic function – or more importantly because of its’ economic function. Neoliberalism needs an expendable labour force so it is in their interest to keep women and the third world as a cheap exploitable source of labour. In other words all things are economic so the solution is to change the economic mode and create a more equitable society where all are equal, women, the majority world, homosexuals and so on.

Yes, I’m being crude here; you know what I’m saying.

However, while Miriam didn’t disagree with me she argued that there was a co-current defining human relations. This was that of racism and misogyny itself, separate from the economic base. The world is defined by a) economic interests, and b) a feeling of superiority by white men.

I’m obviously too indoctrinated. I honestly can’t see how the two are separate and more importantly how we address the racism/sexism part of this equation if not economically. For Miriam, we just had to address it.

Maybe it’s because I’m a white male that I don’t get it. I just want a violent insurrection tomorrow.

God bless Bob Brown:

FED: Green collar jobs and a shorter working week, say Greens
Wednesday, 21 July, 2004

By Saffron Howden

SYDNEY, July 20 AAP – Promising “green collar” jobs, the Greens today said a 35-hour working week should be the cornerstone of any national employment strategy.

Greens’ Senator Bob Brown and Cunningham MP Michael Organ outlined their employment policy today in Wollongong, which has one of Australia’s highest youth unemployment rates.

The shorter working week would accompany capped overtime and an employment guarantee to all long-term jobless.

The measures would be funded by increasing the company tax rate, which was cut from 36 per cent to 30 per cent in 2001-02, the Greens said.

Raising the rate to 33 per cent would generate $3.94 billion this financial year, according to party figures.

Job creation in the Illawarra, which has an unemployment rate almost two percentage points higher than the national level of 5.6 per cent, should be in eco-tourism and sustainable energy and technology sectors, Mr Organ said.

Unemployment in the under-20 age bracket, which hovers around 27 per cent for the region and 16 per cent in Wollongong, would be tackled by a shift from heavy industries to service industries.

“(The Illawarra) has got enormous potential in terms of hospitality and entertainment and ecological (assets),” Senator Brown said.

Employment is the key to addressing poverty and education is the cornerstone of full employment, he said.

The party believes the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) should be abolished, and it condemned recent rises in TAFE and university fees.

“Get rid of the barriers to education,” Senator Brown said.

The real unemployment rate in Australia was much higher than the official figure, which was warped by counting under-employed casual and part-time workers, Senator Brown said.

In a report released late last year, the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) found real unemployment was 12.9 per cent, double the official rate at the time.

“Part-time and casual jobs are not enough for families to get by on,” Senator Brown said.

The Greens also would provide additional funding for small and home-based businesses.

Overtime would be reduced and jobs created by offering employers financial incentives to cut individual workloads, similar to a scheme introduced in France in 2000.

Australians worked more than 22 million hours of overtime in 2000 showing that, while some Australians were unemployed or under-employed, others were over-worked, the Greens said.

(found at: http://www.cch.com.au/fe_news.asp?document_id=51996&topic_code=1&category_code=0

Dear all. I just read this and feel the need to share it with you all. I’m sure many of you were aware of these practices but it’s interesting for two reasons. Firstly the severity of the situation. Secondly the authors awareness of his “americaness” and how he explains things accordingly:

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/071304Nichols/071304nichols.html

Obviously it’s a pretty open and shut case of “boo uranium”. There is nothing good about it. Mining it is a disaster as we are seeing up at Jabaluka (yes we stopped one mine but there is another one still running which just receive nothing more than a slap on the wrist for the leak that contaminated the water supplies affecting large indigenous and white settlements).

But is this entirely true? What about medical research? I’m not as informed as I’d like to be on the issue but it seems to me that a lot of people are kept alive every year by radiation treatment. I’m also told that there are alternative but at the moment they aren’t really viable.

So accepting that all uranium out of the ground is bad for the environment. Let’s imagine for a second that there is no nuclear arms race and that the only legitimate use for uranium (or other radioactive material) is for the sake of human health where only miniscule amounts are needed. Which one gets priority? I assume a Deep Ecologist would argue that the environment gets priority but most others would accept some ecological sacrifice if it means a cure for cancer. But these arguments are still within a modernist, rational framework.

Humans leave an “ecological footprint”. No doubt. Current mainstream ecological thinking mostly revolves around reduction of ecological impact. This is good – we can’t criticise this at the moment because it is the biggest gains are being made and this is desirable.

But I’m arguing for a cacophony here – a Global Cacophonous Democracy (thank you Miriam). And that means that reformists and radicals are working side by side. So what the reformist environment movement needs to be doing is not attacking the radicals in the environment movement and actually encourages discourse while continuing to make the gains that the reformists are making. I am frustrated by the shallowness and the belligerence of large parts on the environment movement who are so desperate to distance themselves from serious debate.

So if I may take my que as a radical at this stage, the answer to ecological emancipation lies with human emancipation. If fact the two are inseparable. There is not nature/human divide and the problem is that current discourse says that there is. Terry the problem is not rationalism. No doubt rationalism is a problem but it is a problem in our current mode of production. Rationalism isn’t necessarily this way. Isn’t it rationalist to say that humans and the environment are inseparable?

So were does this leave us with our little uranium issue? Probably with further technological advancements on two fronts. Firstly in making it safer to use. Secondly in finding alternatives that are viable.

But to sacrifice a human (or humans) for the sake of the environment is ridiculous. As nature and humans are one you are in effect damaging the environment by allowing human suffering. Humans are as (and probably more) important and central to biodiversity than any other species. This is where deep ecologists on the more extreme end have it wrong.

So do humans have to make sacrifices for the environment? The problem with this question is the word “sacrifice”. A life style change doesn’t mean a reduction in a quality of life. Just a change in it.

I think I’m getting better at articulating my point. I hope you agree.

Those of you who enjoyed the Lawrence Lessig presentation I posted some months back will be interested in the following (taken from: http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,9983163%255E15306,00.html):

Big FTA stoush brewing on copyright
James Riley
June 29, 2004

A FULL-SCALE political stoush is brewing over intellectual property provisions in the Australia-US free trade agreement following the passage of enabling legislation last week.

Information on the FTA has been tightly controlled by the Howard Government since a draft was released after year-long negotiations, and interest groups are champing at the bit to push their views.

The open source movement in Australia is leaving nothing to chance in making sure its opposition to the FTA is heard loud and clear in Canberra.

Linux Australia is funding a flying visit to Australia by US constitutional lawyer and intellectual property guru Lawrence Lessig, who will make an 11th-hour appearance before the Senate committee considering the matter.

Professor Lessig is an outspoken critic of the US system of patents, of copyright extension, and of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
———————-

For those of you that missed that posting of Lessig’s presentation you can view it again at: http://randomfoo.net/oscon/2002/lessig/.

It takes a while to download and goes for about half an hour but you will be aptly rewarded.

You know, you talk about the politics of eating meat and I get 10 to 12 comments per post, I talk about perhaps the most significant international relations issue of our time and I get “What are you worried about that for”. I talk about industrial relations which effects EVERYONE and I don’t get one comment. I just don’t know with you people.

Anyway, I’ve hit a bit of a wall with my thesis so perhaps you can all help me at this stage with a topic for my third chapter. My first chapter was obliviously setting up my framework etc and lit review. My second chapter was an analysis of the 2004 World Social Forum within that frame work. The WSF chapter was saying ‘come on guys, let’s get the environment on the agenda – we’re too separated’. I’d like the 3rd chapter to be something along the lines of ‘yo environment movement, a) get your head out of your arses and break down the nature/human dualism and b) realise that you and the social movements are fighting the same battle.’ Does anyone out there in cyber space (and yes, I’m looking at you) know of an example of something like this. There was some big thing in Rio in 1991 or something that was an attempt to get the environment movement and the social movements together after some fantastic report was released (can’t remember what it was called). Anyway, it’s a dated example, it failed and I’d rather not use it so if anyone can think of an issue, event, campaign or so forth that had a good representation from a broad range of Environment groups it would be great for you to tell me about it. Ok? Great.

The Thai-Australia Free Trade Agreement has been signed. And while the Thai PM was in town for the signing it has gone relatively unmentioned by the mainstream press or ‘civil society’ for that matter. This is presumably because, no matter which side of the fence you sit on, the Thai FTA is considerable less contentious.

Doug Cameron made the valid point yesterday that “This agreement shows how free trade agreements may be good for global businesses trying to cut costs, but are a real threat to the security of Australian workers.” For me this cuts to the point. A Free Trade Agreement of any form is exploitative of the working class on both sides of the equation. Australian workers will be made redundant as their jobs are shipped off to Thailand and the Thai workers will continue to earn as little as $4.50 a day – a cost that Australian works don’t want to and shouldn’t have to put up with. So until there is global equality Free Trade Agreements will continue to be good for a small portion of the upper echelons of Australian society. Yes this will be good for our GDP or however else you want to measure national wealth but there is no trickle down effect – it’s more a piss down effect.

Incidentally the USA-FTA is bad for everyone except for Johnny and George’s relationship. That strikes me as not being worth it.

So Mr Howard has turned around and said that under and ALP government Industrial Relations reforms will be regressive. Why? Because productivity is at an all time high. And it is too. And productivity is good no matter which side of politics your are on. I’m sure most of you have noticed this increase in productivity. Working longer hours with a growing number of responsibilities and when you finally get on top of a new responsibility you are simply given another one. How has this been achieved, by taking power from the worker (and therefore union) and giving it to the employer.

But there is another trend at work here. Not only is quality of life declining for a large number of Australians because of this but it is being normalised and expected. People working in Community Groups are some of the hardest working people on this earth. Forget your big time business man (or woman) these people work just as hard, if not harder, 6 to 7 days a week for bugger all money and nominal recognition. They are driven by the cause. But I’ve a feeling that even ten years ago these people were working as hard. Their roles have not particularly changed but the pressure and expectations on them have increase dramatically.

Part of this is an increased emphasis on accountability and reporting but I can’t help but feel that this culture of long hours at great personal sacrifice is ‘tickling down’ and permeating the very fiber of society.

This is just another example of the Hegemony of those in power. You don’t have to legislate directly, these things just permeate society. Under Keating you couldn’t get away with hating Aboriginies, under Howard you can’t get away with less than a 50 hour week.

So thank you all for the invigorating debate that surrounded my last two posts. Nobody changed their opinions, nobody really learnt anything about the issue that they didn’t already know. If I may summarise the divide seems to lie between the moral stance of eating meat and not. Is there a legitimate argument for eating meat? Yes. Is the meat industry bad and should be shut down for ecological and social reason? Yes. Where does the middle ground lie? Probably in going out bush and killing your own kangaroo – bloody good meat that as well.

So, as that was such a contentious issue and I haven’t been called a racist for a while I thought I’d try the Israel Palestine issue on for size. I went and saw Tariq Ali the other night. He was amazing. If you’d like I can organise a recording of the speech for anyone interested. He quite eloquently said that there were two options for the area. The first was for Israel to withdraw to the ‘64 (I think it was 64 border) or for a complete integration of the two nations under one state. The first is logistically the most viable solution the latter is, in my mind, the preferable option. So why wont the latter work in the foreseeable future? Because there is no way that the Palestinian people would ever trust that they would truly have shared power – and with good reason to.

The problem is not Zionism. I know I’ve said otherwise in the past but I’ve changed my mind through informed debate. Zionism is simple the belief in an Israeli state and we can hardly go arguing for a Palestinian state if we are to deny a Jewish one. Simple.

So if the solution to the Israel/Palestinian problem is as simple as withdrawing to the 64 line then why hasn’t it happened yet? I think first and foremost there has been a lack of decent Palestinian leaders. Too many of them have been hard-line fundamentalists who have utilized terrorist tactics to try and get their land back. While their desire is legitimate their means are unsustainable.

The second significant problem has been a string of right-wing Israeli leaders, most significantly Sharon. He’s a mad man who is actively attacking Israel on an almost daily basis. His wall is a travesty that must be stopped. The concerns of the Israeli people of suicide bombers and the likes are quite legitimate but is a wall really going to stop that – especially if it encroaches on Palestinian territory? No.

If Israel withdrew to the 64 line would the suicide bombings stop? No. However they would probably decrease. How do you stop fundamentalism? Through education and the alleviation of poverty – the two are not mutually exclusive. Fundamentalism thrives on the desperate and one doesn’t have to look much further than the Palestinian refugee camps to find some desperation.

So why, if these are all facts which I hope we can all agree, is this such a difficult issue?