Sorry for the lack of responses. This war has put me off the blogging scene momentarily. Enough are living the times of their lives for both sides using the action of war to further their own ideologically based political debate. Using everything for "proof" of their own sides and views superiroty in views.

Ijust didnt think it really worht debating at a time likle this. Nor did i feel as much of a wish to keep it updated. Ohh sure my usual News junkie act let me know what was occuring in majro steps, i didnt really follow it, or hang on the latst developments and the issues they raised. No i views it overall , for as far back as i could could stand without being able to tear the odd eyeball away from a tv screen when the war news came on.

So tonight im wondering about the Class system in this country : Hows this for a discussion starter. If you have a view on this email me Here.

Of course this is the perfect place for a comments system, but thats the life of a unfancy technologically cowardly blogger.

Class System

Im interested in the concept if just economics could radically change our class system. Or if the image we hold for each of them, If it is still just as important.
I know the image and social cultures are very different, between classes in some ways, but what would be their buying price to change class ?.

If we eliminated the rich-poor gap in this nation, would we all but eliminate class ? (Aside from those benefited by nepotism or jobs for the boys etc which is more local corruption than class benefit schemes)

Of course our current PM &President (I consider them as one, for in so many indicators and importance in our nation it seems they are often alike) But Howards paid billion of the nations money via giving it to the rich, and upper class (who accept him thanks to his power), whilst ignoring the 'battlers' re: working class. And Bush hasnt even tried to hide the fact he hates poor people, and wants to improve life for americas richest, a group thats easily the most well off people in the world in numbers.


Also what impact does intelligence have on it. Clearly theres an intelligencia, whos proportaions are both real and yet frequently imagined very differently. Then theres the smart ,millions of levels of good intelligence, and then those for whom brick laying is kinda tough mentally stress wise.
Mentally though, our class system doesnt always fit with the economic or "image" class. The intelligencia is always regarded as having a bit more money than others (Chardonnay sipping etc) but the current president is perfect proof that a strategically shaved monkey with minipulative powers like hitler and the great world orators have in making it into the uppest ruling class without any amazing intelligence. (Though his own image is very cleverly fixed for an american viewer only. )

So does intelligence change the class system, i mean cities like Canberra, full of public servents has still an obvious class difference for a local, but interstate visitors often dont notice the difference, because canberra's a nationally-very-mainstream, kinda well off area.
(And according to Channel 9 was the city that won the IQ constest nationally, smartest of the lot eh ? :) )

See i think we can see the class system in everything. Ie : the gap between sydney, melbourne, and say Tasmania or NT. Maybe we've chosen to see it everywhere. Through teaching from last century that 'thats how it is". I dont deny the theory is valid, but how long term a thing is it. I think its losing relevence.

I see the economic differences as very real and pressing image, but maybe the social ones are more images than reality today.

Discuss.

Mind goes wandering.


How can it be that we only have laws to stop people doing things that hurt us. (and its an experiment we usually arnt winning, problems occuring faster that the legislatiure to cure each and every of societyies ills.In a self perpetuating quest to why this isnt the utopia our morals senses demand it should be. Why the story of genesis with Adam and eve in the bible then comes the ugly real world, is a perfect metaphor for the fragmentation of mans mind. We imagine we deserve the Garden of Eden, yet we get the real, ugly cold world. And so we legislate and fight our neighbours and make war and have countires all in an attempt to push us back to that garden of eden.


Politcts and nations: The search for the garden of Eden.

Howards final plea for war

Well Heres my Assesment of the PM John Howards National Press Club Address (this time given at Parliament houses Great hall due to security fears). The Press Club has often been the stage of many a momentus and important speech for the nation. And though Howard has avoided it often in his term, it was good to see him use it as a platform for a final public statment of his case.


Well it started well, he at least looked like a leader,if he didnt truely enunciate it. After that it went down hill quickly.

The speech had some good points, his points about the humanitarian suffering were valid although thats about where the good points end.

The rest of his speech consited of two points

1) "We've backed ourselves into a HUGE corner,Help".

An argument hes used before and its certianly worhty although it shouldtn be the reason that we go to war because we've gopne thus far. Its a sad indightment if we got to war out of this fear having blunderd via pushing so down the track, and in many ways comparable to the policy howard demonised of trying to accomidate 100% the terrorists.
Well neither policy is acceptable But our PM seems set to argue that it is unnaceptable to use fear as the basis for the 'appeasement' argument, then turns around and uses similar fear for pushing his own argument of helping Australia out of this corner hes put us in.


2) 'Osama wants WMD'.

No shit john. Hes a terrorist its his job. That doesnt mean he has them, nor that Saddam has given him any. In fact the PM ran very quickly from even suggesting there was a Link between Al-Queda and Iraq despite being asked on it twice. He obviously knows there isnt a link, so he resorted to the hypothetical to push his case.

In fact i was rather suprised by the number of hypotheticals this PM jumped into, speculating the french, russian positions 'If this happens then this , or if that happens....'

Yet of course the 'hypothetical' that we could go to war without the UN as both Blair and Bush have publicly said they would was too much for him and he cowered behind the 'wait till after the UN argument' knowing that any decision then is far too late and the people must accept his will. Not happy john.

In so many ways it once again wasnt the speech the Australian people were looking for, some valid points about it not being a war on Islam, of the Humanitarian argument for war. But mainly it seemed to me a call for help out of this corner Howard finds himself in. Of having stuck so close to the USA policy and playing catch up all along, that when the game has turned and he has to delibver hes now shit scared. He gambled high and if the UN vote goes down hes lost and we the Australian people will suffer.

I expected more from the PM.
Blairs gave it, details and facts. - Our PM provided none.

Bush if not providing a better argument was at least honest with his people. - Our PM has not been so forthcoming.


I now hope few Australians will watch the Question and Answer period after the speech in full due to the supreme vagueness and ineptness of the PM to answer in the very real and pressing questions of the people. He didnt even try to answer many of them. It may be his usual public policy when pressed, but in times of war he needs to be more open and forthcoming not talking in those vague and unsetteling terms using stale cliches and only running back to his limp speech.

Two thoughts struck me today :

1) Howard's dropping support and the story of the boy who called wolf.
First came Refugees, and we got so scared of them, we put them in cages in the desert, and had our navy cruisers shoot at their unarmed boats.
Then came terrorism, we believed him for sure this time, but the Fridge Magnet seemed to look like not even care about it.

Finally Iraq. This 'evil' nation, on the other side of the world, with 5-10% of its arsenel since the gulf war, no nukes, limited chemical weapons, and a starving populations is now a threat to the most powerful nation in the world, or even Australia ?

I think Howard, boyed by unfortunate for us, helpful to him world circumstances and a knowledge that fear wins election over policy has cried wolf too many times. By talking up the threat of Iraq so soon and often we switched off. We had been scared like that before and it didnt eventuate, even when he tuerned out to be half right in Bali we realised his cries did little to help.

Had He taken a calm, measured approach to the issues, sat behind the UN, then he could well have support. 64% of the nation sees a UN lead war as a good thing, only 37% are in favour of a USA led strike.

Howard has called wolf too many times, It worked so well in the 2001 election that today we are simply tuning out. Of course there actually was a wolf in the tale, except in reality its not the boy who gets his commuptence , but will be again the people, suffering the unrestrained boy.


2) Vietnam was a loss for the generation of heros for our current mob of USA chicken hawks. Is it possible they see this as their own chance for a momentus conflict, certinaly the invoking of Churchill and the numerous references to the Nazis boost this theory. That this time they think they can do it right, and prove themselves bettwer than cheap scum like LBj and Nixon ?. Without communists to fight, witha poor and sick in America already beatn up on, Iraq is the perfect target for a Republican administration to attack to justify its own worth. All republicans seem to do it, if your not fighting a war as a republican your not doing your job.

Why is it that the right has such a fear of the world. Every election they scream 'vote for us, its a dangerous world', yet we did and 9/11 happens, or we dont and nothing to justify their cries appears.


Strange world this.

The Bulletin attempts to lighten the national mood

I’m, wondering exactly why the Bulletin has hired Tim Blair. Is it as a joke ?. Comic enlightenment of the most banal kind in an otherwise serious and usually respected piece of journalism. ?

This week, Blair unsurprisingly went after the kids in the school protests. We knew it was too big a target for him. All those people with less schooling than him. Here for sure was a target he could attack and feel superior about it.

In giving credence to the idea that his column is a joke the title introduction to his column is: “Tim Blair says ban the kids who say ban the war.” Which would be less amusing if there were men of Blair’s like minded ilk such as Michael Savage in the USA stating

“If you continue this, we're going to go after your funding sources. And we will do everything we can within the legal realm to cut off that funding! We are also going to go to the U.S. Justice Department under John Ashcroft! What you are doing is illegal!"”
.

Nice guy, one just wonders how many weeks it will take for Blair to believe he’s writing serious articles and start sprouting such lines. Anyway back to Blair’s “column”. Question first : Is it fair to call it a column, I mean his normally lackluster, and incoherent columns for The Australian, have degenerated into Bite sized chucks of idiocy and ill educated satire
Has he lost the ability to write, 500 words in coherent sentences, is this the problem of too much blogging at work ?


And I just think that's unjust for the Americans to ask them to destroy their weapons when they're not ... America aren't destroying any of their own."

Stupid kid's never heard of the US-Russia nuclear reduction treaties.



Sorry but America and the UK are insisting on Complete Disarmament, not just some token, lets destroy a 1/10th of our missiles and pretend we are saving the world. So the kids view that Iraq is being deprived of weapons whilst the USA flaunts there own is quite justified.


Then comes this gem letting the world see why we must believe the kid and not our sainted journalist Tim.


He also struggled with the pronunciation of "Muslim", which emerged as a kind of Muslim/Islam combination: "Muslarm"


Well there we go, the kid cant pronounce a word. He mustn't be listened to. Ban him for stupidity. And since this is such a great plan, the PM has to go to, for not knowing his African geography. ( Wander through the site for it, the page is down right now, but you’ll find it sooner or later.)

Next comes this :
“Reporter Brigid Glanville, reeling from these orations, then asked one peace baby if his parents knew he was at the protest:
"No. They don't know yet. But, like, we're not here for a joke or anything. Like, we're here to, like, protest and ..."
And, like, to yell a lot, like, and, like, jump on cars, like, like, and like. Like, anybody who can't, like, spell conscription, should be, like, conscripted.


Anyone else get the shiver down their neck feeling Timmy boy probably feels that way ?. Send off the poor and ill-educated to fight(ala that heyday Vietnam), whilst the boys who passed school get to go home ?.
So how then does he accept that G.W.Bush his hero a decidedly average C- student who has trouble spelling Skipped the war, thanks to dad and his connections.






Finally this ended his column


Cliche monitor asks tennis stars: what is Lleyton Hewitt?
Hewitt is a great competitor.
– Albert Costa, June 6, 2000
He's a great competitor.
– Pat Rafter, September 8, 2000
Lleyton was a great competitor.
– Andy Roddick, September 7, 2001


Etc there’s more examples. Except its hardly a cliché . Since Lleyton Hewitt “competes” in “competitions” its just adding an extra adjective to his title. Its like saying if 10 people think someone’s a good writer then it’s a cliché. It not, it’s a “A trite or overused expression or idea:” Back to school Timmy boy. Maybe next week you can stage your own protests. He’s got some great slogans already “Give fools a chance” and “donate a brain cell”.

Maybe I’m too harsh on the guy, I mean he is funny. Just laughing at, not with.

Government scampers on bulk billing with some good old fashioned smoke and mirrors

It seems the Howard government has finally admitted defeat. On bulk billing that is. There was a time in early 1997 where they boasted how they were improving labors 80% levels of bluk billing. Not anymore.

And rather than admit they have caused problems, rather than actually fix it, they've decided to re-define it.
Its a simple game.

If your opponents catch you on not providing "A", say that you never had to provide "A". Hence with no responsibility theres no poiint anyone listening to your rantings. Its not even an attempt to shut up labor, but an attempt to quell the media.


However its not true. Howard reacently said that bulk billing was not "intended" for all. He then cited that higher incomes especially should not recieve it.

Ok fine.
Problem is, It was "intended" for all, just couldnt be enforced for all.

Let me quote Neil Blewett the health Minister who introduced the scheme under the hawke government.


MEDICARE is a universal health scheme that allows public hospitals to provide free services to all Australians, regardless of income. It has also meant that any doctor could bulk-bill any patient – again, regardless of income – at any time. But because of the constitutional provision forbidding the civil conscription of doctors, the Hawke government, which introduced Medicare 20 years ago, could not compel doctors to bulk-bill.

We did, however, provide incentives to encourage doctors to bulk-bill. And we regarded it as an achievement that by the time the Labor government fell in 1996, more than 80 per cent of all GP services were bulk-billed


However the liberals legal training skills have kicked in, as no the scheme was not forced on everyone. However they went and ballsed it up to use an exprtession, by using the word "Intended". It WAS intended for all, just not provided for all. Sorry howard but once again you've lied and distorted reality for the general public to save your hide.

And the reason, is that if he convinces the world that he doesnt have to provide it for all, then he doesnt have to worry if people suffer, as those suffering are a minority, where as shown public failure earns the loss of votes form a majority.
Simply if the Australian people suffer in silence thats better than him admitting failure.

Nice guy.

However theres another problem with his argument. He has also tried to re-direct our focus by saying that "high income" earners could not be guaranteed the service.

Simple politics, most people (aside from the rich end of town), dont like the rich end of town. They see them as having enough money that they shouldnt have to use taxpayer funde services. Especially ones that reduce their personal costs.

So howard is playing on this, Via imitating that only high income earners are getting screwed, the public will tune out. Who gives a shit if some rich guy has to pay $40 bucks more the public say. But if its a pensioner or the poor who are screwed, that $40 is worth triple or more the amount in the sympathy we give to them.
This nation might not always care for its sick and poor, but it always has a guilty conscious of them.

However Howards smoke and mirrors on this isnt even true. High income earners still are getting access to the bulk billing, their doctors can make enough from them to do so, but those in regional and poorer districts often cant, and these are the areas most hurting from the loss of this service.


In simple, the government has given up on bulk billing. Its a problem labors been harping on about for 6 months. But howard doesnt care, he knows admittng it will hurt him so that even if he did fix the service he wouldnt gain any votes from it. So hes ignoring it. He will retire soon, this can be costellos problem to deal with the PM is saying.

And while that happens the Australian people suffer.
In the last year Australians (despite population growth) are going to the doctos 1.75 million times less.
Lets just savor that agian. More people, and we are going to the doctors less.
In parliament today i heard again and again letters read by the labor senators, letters sent to them by their constitients saying how they simply could not afford to go to the doctor as often as they needed. That some pensioners were $200+ out of pocket for the fortnight, thanks to this government.

Of course changing the illogical and almost corrupt private health rebate scheme (whihc evidence shows dindt actually cause the big take up rate), nor is in any wasy sustainable. Killing that program could easily pay to fix this problem. That would mean real benefits for the poor end of town.

Of course some of Howards neigbours might not be able to claim those running shoes on their insurance any more, so we are unlikely to see any progress, from a government that simply does not care about domestic issues any more. If theres no votes in it, its not on the table, if theres no benefit to their weall off interests groups its not on the table, And if it could harm this PM's record in history as he eyes his way past Fraser and into the record books, nothing will get on the table.

Meanwhile the Australian people suffer in silence.


Although the award for best effort in this debate goes to Liberal backbencher Senator Knowles who told the parliament today
"bulk billing was not intended for anybody"

Freudian slip or what...

I dont want this to turn into a left wing version of the smug cheat shot childish antics of Tim blairs blog But this opinion piece by the man whos been wrong about everything Padraic P. McGuinness takes the cake. In it padraic claims that should the USA not blow up Iraq the west will destory itself. And the ones we should blame are baby boomers who want to leave nothing to come after them. As if its a rampant dream of all baby boomers (Including G.W.Bush) to end the world before they go. But no its not Baby boomer and rich kid G.W.Bush with all the missiles and spats who will end the world. No its all thanks to the nude women in Leichart who lay in the grass to spell "NO WAR".

His leaps of logic are troubleing if not downright , go 180 degrees, take 24 tablets, spin around five times and lets see at what you can end up leaps.


With such an article one has to suspect subtile satire. Bloody subtile. They envisage themselves writing a piece of such style, managing to blame all this on the left as well as write a piece something like Orwell or Huxleys classics.
In this case its more like a raging orgasm of delight at the thought of such a piece which barely hides their claim to be the new G. Orwell.

But then again its now in-fashion for the right to claim Orwell for themselves. "He fought communists" they clamber to yell. Often.
(to which the echo is "And he didnt like you buiggers any better" )

Such figures in history need thier constant defending from such political and personal spin they love to apply.

Take churchill. Seen as a spiritual figure head of the new march to war with Iraq, the man who proved appeasement was wrong. Or so they say, happily ignoring Churchills own biographical wrtings stating

'[those who] seek patiently and faithfully for peaceful compromise' are right 'not only morally but from a practical standpoint'.

Churchill knew appeasment was wrong for that situation. Yet now he is like the god of intervention. He wasnt. He did deals with Stalin in Russia happily, putting off a strong call to war because it wasnt in their interests.

This conflicts seen another porky spread : That Iraqi today is like 1930's Nazi Germany. It would be downright funny, if so many helpless fools didnt think it was true.

(Probably the same 42% of Americans who think Iraq was behind the Sept 11 attacks.)

And what rounds all this off is that the man who i began tonights discussion about our friend McGuiness was a near communist in his youth.
And now an arch conservative.

One wonders at his pain of knowing he nas been wrong all his life.

:)

Generation G : Who stole all our fun... and wheres the last pretzal ?

You notice that the world is going conservative, simply because more and more people are becoming elderly. Hence those young who rise to the top are not the best, like our favored parents generation, who broke free with the hippies, but merely those who enunciate and market the 50-60 yrs olds ideas.

As the world ages, so does all politics with them.
These baby boomers are not just the single biggest voter block, they have become the deciding force of the domestic agenda, they have become the government and the suits are kind of comfortable.

So as the voters go more right wing as self fixated conservatives, politics naturally runs along side begging for the ball to the exclusion of any other beliefs, gaining the soon to be elderly vote has become the fixture of governments world wide.

Ie: asylum seekers, the past few years have not seen a crisis in asylum seekers like Vietnam or WW2 brought, yet few years have been dominated by as focused a single issue as Asylum seekers from august 2001-Sept 2002 in Australia.

Even Howard in his biography will have to admit he made up the crisis as his eyes came to rest on the words "a freight ship the Tampa has rescued at sea asylum seekers", in a move that saved his career and assured his liberal part in-mortality. The liberals like nothing better than a mean bastard who gets the cash and gongs at the end. Vindication for their cause they feel.


But that is another story. The real question then is when the youth today will break through, and weather those in power now will be able to shape the young leaders as strongly in their own image. Their parents failed this task abysmally, but they wont make the same mistake. Men like George Bush and John Brogden are testament to this although brogden may be a wolf who slips through to them. He may be finely placed as a rearguard in the push to the left, although his political party of choice makes this a tougher ask. However he will capture all opposing this world wide ideological change as we opposed last decade or two. He will also pick up those indecisive, for whom "liberal" "labor" mean nothing, but their current boasts may see them across the line, if only because they aren’t the other mob.

Or maybe this is just the desperate warbling of a leftist watching 30 years of baby boomer senility as the controlling force of society.
30 years and most of them should have dropped it off, or been weaned out of the public spot light, but my god its going to be a long time.

We are the generation for whom the next 20 years minimum will be about subservience, of extreme levels. Paranoia will be rife that the old buffoons will catch us out, as not as subservient as they remember their grandfathers slaves were and so down we shall tumble in the corporate ladder.

Of course it gets worse. This parental generation may betray its swashbuckeling style and let in the heros of their dads era in special roles. Men like G Gordon Liddy, who was jailed for his role in Watergate. Now run popular right wing radio shows. George Bush’s inside circle is testament, the heros of their dads, get their special hand in on whils the boy plays leade.r It’s the same game they played 50 years ago, same players watching the new baby , touching it suggestively and now both have grown up, the same touching occurs in the offices of the baby boomers newly gained power. Scott Fitzgerald it seems was wrong, ‘no second chance in american lives’.

However all is not lost , our generation has developed a rear guard fighting machine, the bum licker, snooty right wing Christian.
There’s an older, wine soaked version of this guy at the end of the baby boomers devious plots. But for this generation it may be our weapon. They will kiss ass so hard the elderly will be breaking their hips like they were popper pills.
However and their ranks are many, they may get too far ahead in the game, and see not the old man above as the threat, but us middle and lefties who have something better in mind than plucking arse hairs out of our mouths.

But no our inside machine the butt kisser deluxe may instead decide in an act of cross generational stupidity and begin wiping our kind out of the nations ladders.

This before they have really taken power. When that happens these traitors may find their own generation to again be the cause of all the worlds problems and we will kill ourselves even more.

One can only wonder what our children will think of this, watching their parents generation blowing out each others brains, keeping the fight squarely between the flag poles of ages.

Most likely such a generation may shun this debate entirely and the gap our generation is about to put between us and our kids will be staggering.

We may be the generation for whom we are molded identically in the image of the father, and leave a son looking like another creature. Welcome to Generation G. Someone took all our fun, and there’s no reward at the end. This is going to be a bitch.

The sport of Meejwa watching

Two things on the media ,
1) This excellent article in the Guardian
http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,7558,873395,00.html
On the American Press although, it applies pretty much here as well.
""It's not that the press is uncritical of the people it covers," says Steven Weisman, the New York Times's chief diplomatic correspondent, "but it's critical the way a sportswriter is critical, calling the points and measuring success or failure based on wherever the administration wants to be. So in a situation like this, when the administration is set on waging a war, is enacting its programme and is winning seats at elections, then in a funny way the press becomes like a ga-ga sportswriter. Except for scandals, the press is unable to set the agenda in this country.""

That was the bad cside, heres the good side.
SMH.Com is employing 25 young journalism students to write articles for its NSW Election coverage.
Its called Grassroots and featuresa on non partisan issues of the election, like the communities involvements and feelings about it.
Theres some good stuff there, and good to see something different and interesting from our papers
http://www.smh.com.au/specials/nsw2003/grassroots/index.html