Just getting started
"Everyone else is doing it, so we can't we"
Well, here goes ... welcome to my blog. I aim to use this space to write down thoughts, ideas, rants, and mini-essays on topics of politics, religion, and life in general. Mostly I want to use this site to get back into writing because I feel totally out of it these days, 7 years after leaving university with an Honours degree in environmental politics and walking into a career in ... IT. As you do.
As I write there are a few positive movements that come as a pleasant surprise in the general swirl of diminishing democracy:
1. In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez easily won the recall election called against him when the country's poor stood for up to 12 hours to cast their ballots and be heard. Just as they did when they came down from the hills into Caracas to defeat a US-supported coup in 2002, the poor of Venezuela stood up for their rights and for the legitimacy of a rare politician - one who actually uses his country's wealth to provide basic things like education and health care for all citizens. Coming from an increasingly cynical Australia, this upsurge of citizenship and democratic action is indeed refreshing.
2. Closer to home, the Australian Prime Minister is FINALLY under serious pressure over the Children Overboard Affair (or as it is known amongst the left, the Truth Overboard Affair). Despite the fact that not knowing things for which you are responsible should never have been an available excuse (try it out in the corporate world, Mr Howard), "Teflon John" has evaded any liability for the appalling behaviour in the lead up to the last federal election, when he used the lives of desperate people fleeing despotic regimes we would soon be invading 'on their behalf' as fodder for his xenophobic political ends. No, it wasn't the only thing determining the outcome of that election. But it sure helped swing the marginal seats.
Now, at long last, someone in the public service has said he told John Howard directly, on the phone, that the video was inconclusive, the photos were of a different event. Now another former public servant is backing his story. Mr Howard is looking shaky for the first time in a while on honesty and credibility. It will be interesting to see how the media plays this, and how the public responds in turn. Australians are already pretty cynical about politicians so we don't react too badly to news they lied to us. But if Mark Latham can work the "if you don't trust him, our national security itself is at risk" line successfully, he will romp home. Fun times for the pundits.
Well, here goes ... welcome to my blog. I aim to use this space to write down thoughts, ideas, rants, and mini-essays on topics of politics, religion, and life in general. Mostly I want to use this site to get back into writing because I feel totally out of it these days, 7 years after leaving university with an Honours degree in environmental politics and walking into a career in ... IT. As you do.
As I write there are a few positive movements that come as a pleasant surprise in the general swirl of diminishing democracy:
1. In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez easily won the recall election called against him when the country's poor stood for up to 12 hours to cast their ballots and be heard. Just as they did when they came down from the hills into Caracas to defeat a US-supported coup in 2002, the poor of Venezuela stood up for their rights and for the legitimacy of a rare politician - one who actually uses his country's wealth to provide basic things like education and health care for all citizens. Coming from an increasingly cynical Australia, this upsurge of citizenship and democratic action is indeed refreshing.
2. Closer to home, the Australian Prime Minister is FINALLY under serious pressure over the Children Overboard Affair (or as it is known amongst the left, the Truth Overboard Affair). Despite the fact that not knowing things for which you are responsible should never have been an available excuse (try it out in the corporate world, Mr Howard), "Teflon John" has evaded any liability for the appalling behaviour in the lead up to the last federal election, when he used the lives of desperate people fleeing despotic regimes we would soon be invading 'on their behalf' as fodder for his xenophobic political ends. No, it wasn't the only thing determining the outcome of that election. But it sure helped swing the marginal seats.
Now, at long last, someone in the public service has said he told John Howard directly, on the phone, that the video was inconclusive, the photos were of a different event. Now another former public servant is backing his story. Mr Howard is looking shaky for the first time in a while on honesty and credibility. It will be interesting to see how the media plays this, and how the public responds in turn. Australians are already pretty cynical about politicians so we don't react too badly to news they lied to us. But if Mark Latham can work the "if you don't trust him, our national security itself is at risk" line successfully, he will romp home. Fun times for the pundits.
posted by Justin at 4:39 pm
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