tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35717329302465378042024-03-06T04:09:35.682+11:00— Finding Australia's future direction... Perhaps if we get our heads in another direction we'll be less anxious about the world falling on usDennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571732930246537804.post-28544526573826354632020-01-30T17:03:00.005+11:002022-06-01T20:08:26.882+10:00change of blog<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I don't recall why but I shifted to here<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/goog_608146312"><br /></a>
<a href="http://cephalophoria.blogspot.com/">http://cephalophoria.blogspot.com/</a></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">well, um, after that diversion I went back to <a href="https://dennisargall.blogspot.com/">https://dennisargall.blogspot.com/</a></div>
Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571732930246537804.post-2854027703116466922016-02-10T21:20:00.001+11:002016-02-10T21:22:49.634+11:00Where will the ground shift in the United States?<a href="http://www.eurasiareview.com/10022016-what-new-hampshire-tells-us-oped/" target="_blank">Robert Reich, in today's <i>Eurasia Review</i>,</a> has the shortest political article I have ever seen. So good I take the liberty of quoting in full:<br />
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You will hear pundits analyze the New Hampshire primaries and conclude
that the political “extremes” are now gaining in American politics –
that the Democrats have moved to the left and the Republicans have moved
to the right, and the “center” will not hold. </blockquote>
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Baloney. The truth is that the putative “center” – where the
Democratic Leadership Council and Bill Clinton’s “triangulation” of the
1990s found refuge, where George W. Bush and his corporate buddies and
neoconservative advisers held sway, and where Barack Obama’s Treasury
Department granted Wall Street banks huge bailouts but didn’t rescue
desperate homeowners – did a job on the rest of America, and is now
facing a reckoning. </blockquote>
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The “extremes” are not gaining ground. The anti-establishment ground
forces of the American people are gaining. Some are so fed up they’re
following an authoritarian bigot. Others, more wisely, are signing up
for a “political revolution” to take back America from the moneyed
interests. </blockquote>
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That’s the real choice ahead.</blockquote>
As described at <i>Eurasia Review</i>:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ8eeBsbauvzuH7VUZ4Z4CGC8D7hdgE-5WVwx5mHUP6XgbESNW7nFXg0aPAMe3qeJVWsTl0D6Py065qxGjIU6D_eoQEhclcxIHwOgCIw61QXIIW6MbyknqLTnEvXPxTJerUwF7n6C6HfY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-02-10+at+9.18.25+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ8eeBsbauvzuH7VUZ4Z4CGC8D7hdgE-5WVwx5mHUP6XgbESNW7nFXg0aPAMe3qeJVWsTl0D6Py065qxGjIU6D_eoQEhclcxIHwOgCIw61QXIIW6MbyknqLTnEvXPxTJerUwF7n6C6HfY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-02-10+at+9.18.25+PM.png" /></a><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.eurasiareview.com/author/robert-reich/" target="_blank">Robert Reich</a> is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the
University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national
administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President
Bill Clinton. He has written thirteen books, including The Work of
Nations, Locked in the Cabinet, Supercapitalism, and his most recent
book, Aftershock. His "Marketplace" commentaries can be found on
publicradio.com and iTunes. He is also Common Cause's board chairman.
His website is: <a href="http://robertreich.org/">http://robertreich.org</a> </span></blockquote>
Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571732930246537804.post-72720629473768632802016-02-10T11:12:00.001+11:002016-02-10T11:30:49.293+11:00The rise of populist demagoguery: economic destruction, international horrors?While most of us here in Australia and hopefully most people in the United States are repelled by and anxious at the prospect of possible election of Donald Trump in the United States,<a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/politicians-pose-risk-to-global-stability-by-jacek-rostowski-2016-02#v2yHkU45zrVZTqgF.99" target="_blank"> Jacek Rostowski who was Poland’s Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister from 2007 to 2013 has written a valuable commentary at Project Syndicate</a>, in which he links the Trump phenomenon with the the rise of the 'PEKOs':<br />
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[T]he
West is coming under pressure again, including in its own backyard.
This time, the challenge is political, not economic: the rise of
politicians who relish conflict and disdain national and international
law and democratic norms. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a class="support-link" href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/donation?route=commentary&url=politicians-pose-risk-to-global-stability-by-jacek-rostowski-2016-02&trigger=mpu&country=us&redirect=/commentary/politicians-pose-risk-to-global-stability-by-jacek-rostowski-2016-02">
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I call such leaders
“PEKOs,” after the four most prominent examples of their kind: Russian
President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/recep-tayyip-erdogan" target="_blank">Recep Tayyep Erdoğan</a> (<a href="https://www.rt.com/news/331711-erdogan-washington-syrian-kurds/" target="_blank">see also</a>) the
Polish politician <a href="http://www.politico.eu/article/poland-elections-kaczynski-tusk-duda-smolensk/" target="_blank">Jarosław Kaczyński</a> (<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/07/smolensk-plane-crash-lech-kaczynski-poland-russia" target="_blank">see also</a>) and Hungarian Prime Minister
<a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/31/the-regression-of-viktor-orban-hungary-europe/" target="_blank">Viktor Orbán</a> (<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/hungary/12086883/Viktor-Orban-is-no-fascist-hes-David-Camerons-best-chance-at-EU-reform.html" target="_blank">see also</a>).</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div data-line-id="9ee9080a6a9044d2a0d4f264fd990978">
PEKOs do not view
politics as the management of collective emotions in order to achieve
broad policy goals: faster economic growth, a more equitable
distribution of income, or greater national security, power, and
prestige. Instead, they regard politics as an endless series of
intrigues and purges aimed at preserving personal power and privilege.
</div>
</blockquote>
<br />
Read more at
<a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/politicians-pose-risk-to-global-stability-by-jacek-rostowski-2016-02#v2yHkU45zrVZTqgF.99">https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/politicians-pose-risk-to-global-stability-by-jacek-rostowski-2016-02#v2yHkU45zrVZTqgF.99</a></div>
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To link Trump with these is valuable, because much media attention focuses on Trump as an anomaly, not part of a pattern. Rostowki notes that the PEKOs have to face elections and are highly successful electorally, even though those in office are presiding over economic decline. </div>
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If we take his argument to the electorate level and put aside Trump, in the USA clearly the success of the Tea Party (<a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/02/09/politics/obama-budget-republicans/index.html?eref=rss_latest" target="_blank">and this week their intent to crush the Obama budget</a>) reflects the same kind of success. An appeal to personal prejudices and apprehensions, unadorned by vision of consequences of selfish perspective.</div>
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The same pattern has been evident in Australia with the Abbott victory: knucklehead phrase and cut the taxes. In a so-far coherent way <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/malcolm-turnbull" target="_blank">Malcolm Turnbull </a>(<a href="https://newmatilda.com/?s=turnbull" target="_blank">and also</a>) (<a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/why-malcolm-turnbull-needs-tony-abbott/news-story/e19508f9e6dada66f636cb516fd83b17" target="_blank">and also</a>) has shifted the balance away from that but his appeal is far from connected to policy vision in the hearts of the electorate, which just wearied of embarrassing leadership and has been entranced by good looks and longer sentences. Meanwhile we might sensibly look upon PM Turnbull as more enlightened than previous leaders in serving the 1% or 10% given his own wealth. </div>
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Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571732930246537804.post-42836717362308619082016-01-25T16:56:00.003+11:002016-01-25T17:46:14.035+11:00To have a strategic direction we have to be a nationSounds obvious, but we are in a muddled state here.<br />
<br />
In recent years I have become uneasy about chauvinistic displays of the Australian flag by more and more around Australia Day, tomorrow, 26 January. Glad to see all the chauvinalia stacked in the front of local supermarket at half price yesterday. Long may they decline in significance.<br />
<br />
I have also been uncomfortable with the rising enthusiasm for war-remembering and marching, with less questioning of commitments we take to go to war and more snarling at suggestions we should lift into the Australian calendar those dreadful wars in Australia, the only wars in Australia, against indigenous Australians, by white invaders.<br />
<br />
I am pleased that there exists <a href="https://newmatilda.com/" target="_blank">a radical Australian news-on-line source </a>with whole-Australia including Aboriginal focus and that I am a supporter of it, albeit a very modest supporter. Please read and become a contributor to <a href="https://newmatilda.com/" target="_blank">New Matilda</a>.<br />
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I am pleased that people have begun to say <a href="http://theconversation.com/young-and-free-why-i-declined-to-sing-the-national-anthem-at-the-2015-afl-grand-final-49234" target="_blank">they will not sing the Australian National Anthem because it spits on the full history of Australia</a>, with its dirty dark side. because it claims that Australia is "young and free" when in fact it is an old continent with the oldest people and it is far from free in many senses, in my view least free in its entrapment by fantasies about itself and the world. I'm pleased that we've begun to think about all this and I hope we can move forward collectively without great ructure. But there will be quite a lot of ructure and we need energy and determination for it. Though I am 72 and disabled, I will do what I can.<br />
<br />
Former Prime Minister John Howard said we should put the origins of the Iraq war behind us, as also he and a conservative phalanx want us to put behind us the real history of Australia with its dirtiness and brutality towards indigenous people. <br />
<br />
We cannot. We must not. Though <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-28/standford-booing-adam-goodes:-are-we-even-aware-we're-racists/6653108" target="_blank">we hit a muddy rock bottom of racism during 2015</a>.<br />
<br />
There is a chance that the tide may turn.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEV2myhlZX-HELa7cH1T5rKU-q5IYSvoSdEiSE0X0HmM2a_50DJ74nJG11YecEU4UUs4PfyjJxJxro2GxpYD8cc8JqxE5nDZeLwqjZIT5KCWpVzUKlHGkRd3vnIhBeg2R1Wtxkz3j07i4/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-01-25+at+5.24.15+pm.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEV2myhlZX-HELa7cH1T5rKU-q5IYSvoSdEiSE0X0HmM2a_50DJ74nJG11YecEU4UUs4PfyjJxJxro2GxpYD8cc8JqxE5nDZeLwqjZIT5KCWpVzUKlHGkRd3vnIhBeg2R1Wtxkz3j07i4/s200/Screen+Shot+2016-01-25+at+5.24.15+pm.png" width="139" /></a></div>
A speech last week, embedded below, on how racism is destroying the Australian dream, by experienced journalist Stan Grant, these days indigenous affairs editor of <i>The Guardian, </i> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/jan/24/stan-grants-speech-on-racism-and-the-australian-dream-goes-viral" target="_blank">has reportedly now gone viral</a>. <br />
<br />
When we begin to deal with the dark history of Australia:—<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
... then may we be able to go on and deal with our culpability for the shit we have created variously in the middle east and in the rise of terrorism by going into a stupid war in Iraq...<br />
... and then maybe we might be able become a sensible ally of the USA, a thoughtful one, with opinions and wisdoms, if we must be an ally, if the USA remains worthy of our alliance (another subject).</blockquote>
<br />
<a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/joe-hockey-says-gday-to-the-usa-with-a-snelfie-20160124-gmctxu.html" target="_blank">Sending a fool as ambassador to Washington and having press fawn over him is not a good start.</a><br />
<br />
May we go forward from here to find an identity without which sensible strategy not possible. <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-25/premiers-unite-for-an-australian-head-of-state/7110632" target="_blank">State Premiers, all but one of them, today called for an Australian Head of State, but we have to gouge much deeper into systems and psyches</a>. <br />
<br />
Think upon this: Stan Grant's speech. Let us hope banners are raised and battles won, towards a new kind of Australia, not just the nice multicultural society we used to have but something more robustly, thoughtfully decent, inclusive, respecting and empowered. That's my Australia Day wish.<br />
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<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uEOssW1rw0I" width="560"></iframe></div>
Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571732930246537804.post-47366948128168340792016-01-25T10:54:00.000+11:002016-01-25T10:54:02.022+11:00North Korea (DPRK)Again I mention the references to the importance of empathy over there in the right column (or probably missing if you read this on a phone).<br />
<br />
I wrote this below at The Guardian recently, after North Korea's latest nuclear test.<br />
<br />
It was interesting that one person commented TLDR. I learned that TLDR means 'too long, didn't read.' No empathy possible without thought. The translater of TLDR had a nice comment:<br />
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d-comment--response" data-comment-author-id="12014980" data-comment-author="Bill_Fraud" data-comment-highlighted="false" data-comment-id="66264371" data-comment-replies="0" data-comment-timestamp="2016-01-06T21:11:26.000Z" id="comment-66264371" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Comment"><div class="d-comment__inner d-comment__inner--response">
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It's important to recognise that North
Korea's behaviour is much as one might expect of a country locked in a
broom cupboard for over half a century. Also to recognise that in that
time North Korea has been subjected to more overt [nuclear] threats than any other
country, including the breach in 1974 of US policy never to confirm or
deny the presence of nuclear weapons when US Defense Secretary James
Schlesinger affirmed the location of nuclear weapons in South Korea
aimed at the north. <br />And to recognise that in the 1990s the US failed to meet commitments agreed with North Korea. <br />While
also recognising that North Korea's attempts at independent technical
innovation have more often been ragged than not, and North Korea's
ventures in trying to follow China in more open economic relations with
the world were terribly timed and they were badly burned especially by
the 1979 oil shock... as well as by lousy trade associates. <br />And
recognising that they have tended to fulfil all the dreadful sarcastic
characterisations of North Korea by both US military planners and the
whole rang of media pundits and commentators. Be careful what you wish
for and plan and militarily manoeuvre against. It is plain that the
annual summer reinforcement exercises between the US and South Korea are
carried on in a manner to antagonise North Korea, to prod North Korean
electronic intelligence and cause agitation in the North Korean
leadership. While no more under civilian policy control on the US side
than was Douglas MacArthur when in 1950 he wanted to carry the Korean
War to Beijing, nuking all the way, until Truman yanked him out. <br />
And in this situation, particularly worryingly, recognising that
reports of widespread use of crystal meths in North Korea, including by
leaders, may be true ... and that in consequence decision making may be
coloured to say the least. <br />
In longer history, Korea has had the difficult role of living between
China and Korea, with different culture and language more closely
related to Finnish and Turkish. A hermit kingdom. Remembering for
comparison that up to 150 years ago, in Japan, attempt to leave that
country was punishable by death. And that thus there are traditional
values deep in the tormented psyche of Pyongyang. <br />
I come back to the 'locked in the broom cupboard of Asia' analogy
with which I began. Having had some role in the 1970s in Australian
efforts to recognise and open the door to North Korea, under Whitlam's
policy of recognising realities, which saw also recognition of Beijing
and Hanoi. Against hostility and ridicule from Washington, Seoul and a
wider range of countries that should know better. Over and again, fixing
the Korean Question has been put aside, left to be seen as soldiers see
it, while other issues given priority in Washington... till we get to
this appalling point. Getting the demon we caricatured. But still some
have to venture into engagement with the broom cupboard. On terms other
than castigation and stick waving.<br />
<br />
Some effort needs to be made to see the world as seen from Pyongyang
if ever we are to resolve issues with Pyongyang. And not with ridicule
and sensationalist description as seems the norm in the west. So often
we succeed in proving to Pyongyang that opening to the world is very
dangerous. Sit for a moment in Pyongyang and try to understand Donald
Trump. Consider the wisdom and success of US policy in the Middle East.
Consider what has happened in countries recently open to 'democracy' and
the west. To liberation, like Libya and Syria and of course Iraq,
Afghanistan ... and the USSR. Baby it's cold outside. All our
perspectives are distorted, all our hands are dirty. Let's step back
from righteous giggling out here. At least setting off a bomb stops the
giggling, let's see how those Americans react with shit in their pants:
that's what they are thinking in Pyongyang, let's get some respect round
here, respect the way they've sought respect out there.<br />
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Too lazy, didn't read... Too bad, it was interesting.<br />
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<br />Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571732930246537804.post-74009375546751778582016-01-23T12:11:00.003+11:002016-01-25T10:43:34.761+11:00January 2016<div class="tr_bq">
I have not written for half a year here. Looking back on what I wrote in most recent posts I am pleased to rediscover what I said, that it still seems to make sense... and almost that there is nothing more to say. Things seem so cut and dried in our political system right now when our Australian Prime Minister has an approval rating of 80%, we know so little about what his policies and capabilities ... and we have an Opposition Leader with popularity below 20% and policies which may be quite good but who will never be seen as a leader.</div>
<div class="tr_bq">
<br /></div>
<div class="tr_bq">
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvoqQT41wos" target="_blank">Russell Brand decided he had no more to say, but his final message was exhausting</a>. I will try to learn from that...</div>
<br />
In the right column I quote two fiction writers on the importance of empathy. We need to read and think and put ourselves in the places of others.<br />
<br />
We also need to be aware of history. I commented on <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jan/16/saudi-aramco-10-trillion-dollar-mystery-heart-of-gulf-state" target="_blank">a recent quality article at The Guardian about Saudi Arabia and the oil outlook</a> as follows (links and some tidying now added). My intention is just to offer one subject among many where we can benefit from deeper understanding rather than just instant manic policy lurch or godlike strategic pronouncement:<br />
<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Guardian Text Sans Web', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0.5rem; word-wrap: break-word;">
Can I offer these thoughts for those who scoff at Saudi princelings.<span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Guardian Text Sans Web', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0.5rem; word-wrap: break-word;">
i<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Proud_Tower" target="_blank">n 1900 the only member of the British cabinet who was not a princeling </a>was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Chamberlain" target="_blank">Joseph Chamberlain</a>, the millionaire who moved his politics to the right to become a monster of empire and start the Second Boer War. That he came from Manchester: Manchester that rose to wealth on the backs of poor Irish workers and, earlier on, southern American cotton picking slaves, then empire-cheap workers. From such sprang mighty Immodest Britain.<span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Guardian Text Sans Web', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0.5rem; word-wrap: break-word;">
Can I note as historical record that the beginning of significant oil taxation in the west began with the first <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis" target="_blank">oil shock in 1973</a>, when the Saudis organised OPEC and prices went up. That the intention was to restrain consumption but it is evident that consumers are not so daunted by price... until we compare with the effect of negligible restraint in the USA and the persistence there of gas guzzling. Thank you Europe for restraint, taxation, more sensible prices and vehicles. And thank you Saudis for taking a hold of your resources and getting the world on a slightly better course.<span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Guardian Text Sans Web', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0.5rem; word-wrap: break-word;">
Can I mention that the great USA-Saudi-Aramco relationship can be traced to the <a href="http://www.arabiantreasurehunt.com/Pdf's/Roosevelt/Part%202.pdf" target="_blank">rivalry between Lawrence of Arabia and Philby Senior</a>, father of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Philby" target="_blank">Philby Spy</a>, for influence in London. Lawrence was the bigger charmer and sold London on giving first place to relations with Amman and Baghdad. Philby, fuming over his conditions as consul in Jeddah [<a href="http://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/197401/into.the.highlands.htm" target="_blank">dip toes here</a>] and annoyed that London had spurned the Saudis, introduced the Americans, which some might say a greater betrayal of England than his boy achieved. But not greater than Lawrence's betrayal of us all, teaching Arabs the virtue of blowing things up. I cite <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._H._Liddell_Hart" target="_blank">Basil Liddell-Hart</a>'s opinion on that, Lawrence's responsibility for legitimising terrorism.<span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Guardian Text Sans Web', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0.5rem; word-wrap: break-word;">
Can I also note that turbulence in Iran can be traced back to British and American intervention. <a href="http://www.iranchamber.com/history/coup53/coup53p1.php">http://www.iranchamber.com/history/coup53/coup53p1.php</a> says that the 1953 coup was the CIA's first success, but we may well consider the long view and the dreadfulnesses since the 1970s especially.<span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Guardian Text Sans Web', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0.5rem; word-wrap: break-word;">
Can I mention to those that scoff at free education and capital expenditure based on oil in Saudi Arabia that Australia's roads and hospitals and schools have been sustained in the last several decades by China and others buying resources.<span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Guardian Text Sans Web', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0.5rem; word-wrap: break-word;">
And note that indicative of our higher intellects we will abandon public schools and hospitals before we abandon road spending. Or consider sensible redistributive taxation. Electing conservative leaders similar to those in the UK and USA who though in the great scheme of things not hugely rich perversely consider it a goddess-given virtue to work wholeheartedly for the 1%.<span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Guardian Text Sans Web', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0.5rem; word-wrap: break-word;">
If people don't begin to see such perspectives then ... Well the world will be as much at risk as if its fate were in the hands of young history-naive children in banks and trading places wherever.</blockquote>
<br />
Partly when people are scoffing at Arabia and enthusiastic about bombing we can see race prejudice. Partly we can see the influence of computer games and enthusiasm for swift winner hits. And desire that problems can be solved from a safe distance. <br />
<br />
We have a problem in the Australian state of New South Wales that the only planning body is the roads authority: therefore we get world's-best roads proliferating without much tethering to comparative value of expenditure of billions of dollars on this or other purpose, or on other means of transport, or other more modest standards for roads. Similarly in national strategy, we have mainly a defence-oriented, or rather defence-force-focused way of making policy. And for so long as we have members of the defence force in Afghanistan and Iraq it is necessary for governments to mindlessly chant what a wonderful job they are doing to good purpose... though this is really precisely when we should review rigorously. <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/07/09/partnership-china-avoid-world-war/" target="_blank">This extraordinary review of the last decade or so by George Soros is a good place to start any thinking about the future</a>.<br />
<br />
In Washington the <a href="http://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/barack-obama-touts-australias-contribution-to-isis-fight-as-he-welcomes-malcolm-turnbull-to-us/news-story/bc4fa195a5ca24929a3d163e55938602" target="_blank">US President exclaims that Australia is the second largest contributor to war against ISIL, read this fodder for Murdoch tabloid</a>. But in Australia we have no debate on this extraordinary contribution, there is just the macho--national-security-bug-squash reflex. There is no discussion of our own direct contribution, by going to war in Iraq in 2003, to precisely the problem of ISIL.<br />
<br />
We march to the drum beat, policy subordinated to that of a major ally partner, let no one discuss the decline of American power, the demonstrated inefficacy of military force, the demonstrated fact that our essays in war create monstrous new problems.<br />
<br />
In this bright new year, emerging from the summer holiday season in Australia, we do look with horror at the dreadful prospect of a possible Republican president in the United States. In the 1970s when I was counsellor and acting Minister in the Washington Embassy, it was a bit droll to have Prime Minister Fraser visit President Ford and say "I agree with you" and the next year visit President Carter and say "I agree with you"... when obviously these presidents did not agree with each other.<br />
<br />
We have an election late this year in Australia too. We enter the election year with a recently-installed-in-party-coup conservative Prime Minister Turnbull with a popularity of 80%, being a man of elegance, eloquence and wealth, about whose policies there is deep uncertainty. We have an Opposition Leader, Labor's Bill Shorten with popularity <20% whose appearances in public are fumbling and excruciatingly embarrassing, and whose policies may be more merciful but ... it is unimaginable to think of him as an inspiring leader, driving us towards whatever future, commanding relations with other countries. So we may expect the nation to continue with negligible mental preoccupation beyond rages of Facebook and Twitter. And the price of petrol. And the smoothness of roads. And the occasional annoyance about people who have no work. And occasional mad paroxysms about people who are different. Government spending will be significantly altered with the commencement of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) in 2016-2017... We wait to see from where funds will be taken.<br />
<br />Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571732930246537804.post-74723973922050376122015-06-02T15:11:00.000+10:002015-06-03T04:16:24.821+10:00neglected<div class="tr_bq">
I have been neglecting you dear blog.</div>
<br />
Various reasons including desultory health but also standing back and watching the energy so many people put into having opinions and wondering if somewhere there is some mechanism, some magic ingredient to make the utterances of more and more mean anything more than addition to mass brass instrument cacophany. Do a web search for number of books published to see the explosion just in books... but books are a declining element in public writing.<br />
<br />
Perhaps this metaphor is apposite because I am writing this in often quite noisy Mexico City.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 11.1999998092651px;">Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 11.1999998092651px;">Man is the only being who knows he is alone, and the only one who seeks out another.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 11.1999998092651px;"><a href="http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/s/a/sam50/readings521/OP_Mex-Mask.pdf" target="_blank">Octavio Paz, <i>The Labyrinth of Solitude</i></a></span></blockquote>
This may have greater meaning now that the internet becomes as noisy as a Mexican street. But do those of us who write to the web write for others, to engage with others? Or to express the urge to utter?<br />
<br />
There are a number of my generation who have been active in government policy who write about their past fields, repeating what they said before or with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27esprit_de_l%27escalier" target="_blank">l'esprit de l'escalier</a> what they wished they'd said before. But I do not sense a connect to younger generations who must be the ones to find sensible new international policies.<br />
<br />
I'd just recommend that younger generations reject a lot of the silly and dangerous adventurist and posturing baggage of Australian strategic utterances and deployments. We have been shown by Ireland just how slow and backward we are on equality issues.<br />
<br />
Generations seem to be getting both dumber and more cautious, their world full of threats, disemployment, apprehension about saying the wrong thing. As I said in a 2004 speech about the Iraq war, the right to speak is reduced, vocabulary is reduced, distorted:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br />In 1914 and over the years that followed, as in 2001 and years that follow it, we see political leaders create a situation where they must remain consistent with already failed strategy. They must chew up more lives, because to do otherwise risks not just their own positions but the whole posture and shape of state power they have built up to reinforce their strategies. So much so, that rivals... have to speak the same language, have to say yes they will fight the War on Terror, otherwise they themselves fear being political losers because the whole political vocabulary has been distorted by fear and misinformation. We say to ALL political leaders this: we reject the macho thick-skull notion that you can’t change your mind. We will support you in any pursuit of sane new policy directions to other than war.</span></blockquote>
<br />
In Washington in the 1970s and next in writing speeches for the Labor Party in opposition I thought I made some way with the argument that a good ally is one which helps a big friend to see some course of action is unwise, rather than trotting behind. Huh! It seems so blindingly obvious. Why grasp the coat-tail of someone who won't listen. Why imagine you are more than a doormat if all you do is say yes.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile my partner and I have been finding happier times visiting family in the USA and going on for several weeks in Mexico. From which two blogs. It's a slog but good for the brain to try to write up a day's travel or a moment's something. And you can change yourself and be fully alive by thinking freely. There is so much to learn and if you don't take it in you won't learn, won't change.<br />
<br />
Here are the two current blogs:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="http://seattletosanfrancisco2015.blogspot.mx/" target="_blank">Seattle to San Francisco</a><br />
<a href="http://ongoingtomexico.blogspot.mx/" target="_blank">Mexico</a></blockquote>
<br />Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571732930246537804.post-84679626072849214992015-01-17T15:02:00.000+11:002015-01-20T08:32:33.496+11:00What does the Australian Labor Party stand for?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.naa.gov.au/Images/menadue-200_tcm16-43841.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.naa.gov.au/Images/menadue-200_tcm16-43841.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/snapshots/dismissal/characters.aspx" target="_blank">National Archives photo</a><br />
forty years ago<br />
when Secretary of the<br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">Prime Minister's Department.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Menadue" target="_blank">John Menadue</a> has today reposted a <a href="http://johnmenadue.com/blog/?p=2319" target="_blank">very sensible clear statement of what the ALP needs to do if it is to have a future. </a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://johnmenadue.com/blog/?p=2319" target="_blank">Read it here. </a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://johnmenadue.com/blog/?p=2319" target="_blank">Please</a>.<br />
<br />
A sample of the clarity and sense:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">"If Labor is to differentiate itself from conservative parties, it needs to express that difference in a clear set of principles which accord with the best of Australians’ values. Otherwise the political contest is reduced to satisfying short-term materialist ‘aspirations’, appeasing vested interests and managing the media cycle. In such a contest, Labor is engaged in a futile struggle, for the Coalition is adept at conveying the misleading impression that it is the ‘natural party of government’, particularly because of its supposed competence in economic management. Joe Hockey’s performance as Treasurer shows that this supposed competence is a myth but conservative commentators still persist with the myth."</span></blockquote>
<br />
That's from part 1. <a href="http://johnmenadue.com/blog/?p=2329" target="_blank">John has also reposted his concluding elegant part 6</a>. The language is clear, the arguments important.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Even conservatives acknowledge that only the public sector can provide some services such as national defence and management of the money supply. In addition, however there are economic functions where private funding or provision is possible but only at high economic cost, with distorted incentives and with serious consequences for equity. These include education, health insurance, energy and water utilities and communication and transport infrastructure. In these and other areas there are market failures for which prudent economic principles require a strong government role in funding or provision. Unless Labor articulates and defends the proper economic role of government – a pre-requisite to improving Australia’s weak taxation base – economic growth will be restrained by inadequate public spending and investment.<br />Of these investments, the most important is human capital to ensure that people can develop their capabilities so that they can contribute to their full potential through employment, business or unpaid work...<br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">...[Labor] should present its human capital policies in the context of a unified set of principles in infrastructure, education, health, environmental protection, underpinned by principles of investing in capabilities, nurturing individual freedom and autonomy and supporting social inclusion.</span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></div>
Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571732930246537804.post-53665651940604242462015-01-17T09:49:00.004+11:002015-01-19T23:40:54.520+11:00Charlie Hebdo, Paris 17; Baga, Nigeria 2000<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: left;">
My entry in this blog on 9 January about Charlie Hebdo and 9/11 may have been gloomier than necessary. OR not gloomy enough. The quality of transient passion whipped by social media was nicely summed up in the <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/daily-cartoon/" target="_blank"><i>New Yorker</i>'s daily cartoon</a> 26 December.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimAI5ds6j9A_7FW7Ks_c0tqbe79wVAC1XIJtCNEdUYX-6bS4XxfYwQwwvgetTjOzU6r9VmMZbnYXOFszZsokNKOSnvQlr01fF_BvRf_WfWlbid9-zvJ7LAI88gzMURhpW6V3x2c_xygV4/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-01-17+at+10.00.07+am.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimAI5ds6j9A_7FW7Ks_c0tqbe79wVAC1XIJtCNEdUYX-6bS4XxfYwQwwvgetTjOzU6r9VmMZbnYXOFszZsokNKOSnvQlr01fF_BvRf_WfWlbid9-zvJ7LAI88gzMURhpW6V3x2c_xygV4/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-01-17+at+10.00.07+am.png" height="400" width="375" /></a></div>
<br />
<a href="http://johnmenadue.com/blog/" target="_blank">John Menadue, at his blog,</a> has written and linked to some good thoughts on Charlie Hebdo.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/nigerias-forgotten-massacre-2000-slaughtered-by-boko-haram-but-the-west-is-failing-to-help-9970355.html" target="_blank"><i>The Independent</i> carried this report</a> which makes sobering reading about the way the virtual world and political pompery of the developed world has reacted to the massacre of 17 rude people in Paris, while the murder of 2000 innocents in a Nigerian village arouses scant attention, though its strategic consequences are large, much as Ebola has strategic consequences.<br />
<br />
As to what to do about Charlie, Russell Brand again makes good sense.<br />
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Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571732930246537804.post-13403348464540231102015-01-09T09:45:00.002+11:002015-01-20T08:21:55.948+11:00Charlie Hebdo and 9/11<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I'm afraid that the global reaction to<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/jan/08/charlie-hebdo-shooting-several-arrests-in-manhunt-for-suspects-live-updates" target="_blank"> the Charlie Hebdo atrocity</a> reminds me more than anything else of the mad response to 9/11.<br />
<br />
<i>The Guardian</i> has offered an <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/08/guardian-view-charlie-hebdo-show-solidarity-own-voice" target="_blank">editorial</a> and a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/08/guardian-view-response-terror-attack-charlie-hebdo-crime-act-war" target="_blank">commentary</a> urging moderation and thoughtful response and quite quickly shut down commenting with bricks being hurled at the paper. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/08/charlie-hebdo-freedoms-must-not-be-applied-selectively" target="_blank">It has highlighted some letters which point to the need to maintain perspective</a>, not least the context of western military violence, including against media, this without offering room for comments.<br />
<br />
In my view the mass outpouring of sympathy is one thing, the mass leaning towards retribution is very dangerous, especially as it seems more global and crowd-pushed than 9/11. It will be difficult for governments to be moderate, it will be easier for security perspectives to prevail if people demand hostile responses and if people use the event to tag every Muslim. And easier for far right politics to come to the fore. Along with anarchic leftish activity, the old left being as comfortable as President Hollande is popular in this swirling stream.<br />
<br />
And some pillars of <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/01/we-are-not-all-charlie-hebdo-attack/384319/" target="_blank">progressive editorial virtue are ready to pillory any murmur of doubt about the righteousness of Charlie</a>.<br />
<br />
I find myself very uncomfortable finding any measure of agreement with the disagreeable <a href="http://www.eurasiareview.com/author/william-donahue/" target="_blank">Bill Donohue</a>, given his demeanour and his ugly outpourings generally, but <a href="http://www.eurasiareview.com/08012015-muslims-right-angry-oped/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eurasiareview%2FVsnE+%28Eurasia+Review%29" target="_blank">there is a germ of reality in his comment on this event</a>.<br />
<br />
While social media and much mass entertainment depends upon and stokes extravagant rudeness and wildness there are things which work towards peace and freedom and things which reinforce intolerance and whip up hatreds. As did many of the cartoons, the wild-child nose thumbing and toilet humour of Charlie Hebdo and your everyday wave of nastiness on social media. It is of the fabric of bullying, of American exceptionalism, of the right to rush into other countries, the right to bash a spouse for disagreeing or just to vilify. Vilification is vilification.<br />
<br />
And if we are concerned for war avoidance and enhancement of development and stability in the world, we need to be very concerned about what has happened in the reaction as much as the atrocity. Or more, because if we assert that we are better people, we should try to be better people.<br />
<br />
The <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/jan/08/charlie-hebdo-shooting-several-arrests-in-manhunt-for-suspects-live-updates" target="_blank">atrocity in Paris</a> is criminal, not an act of war... of if it is found to have been directed rather than inspired by some known terrorist organisation, then we should look carefully at its effects and our responses have to be deliberate and constructive. If is is an act of war it has been immensely successful in causing political chaos in the enemy. Clausewitz discussed the tendency of war to drive out policy:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Were [war] a complete, untrammeled, absolute manifestation<br />
of violence (as the pure concept would require), war would of<br />
its own independent will usurp the place of policy the moment<br />
policy had brought it into being; it would then drive policy out<br />
of office and rule by the laws of its own nature, very much like a<br />
mine that can explode only in the manner or direction<br />
predetermined by the setting. This, in fact, is the view that<br />
has been taken of the matter whenever some discord between<br />
policy and the conduct of war has stimulated theoretical<br />
distinctions of this kind. But in reality things are different,<br />
and this view is thoroughly mistaken.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
.... <span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub349.pdf" target="_blank">As quoted by Suzanne Nielsen, POLITICAL CONTROL OVER THE USE OF FORCE: A CLAUSEWITZIAN PERSPECTIVE, May 2001, p.16</a></span></blockquote>
Sadly I think Clausewitz's last sentence quoted above, while relevant to war in the early 1800s, is not relevant now, in a period of absolute and pervasive war, with proliferation of tools of violence and mobility and independence of decision that he could not have imagined. He wrote in the wake of the Congress of Vienna, the great moment in which 'the state' was affirmed as the definition of international life and strategy and power. Presided over by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klemens_von_Metternich" target="_blank">Metternich</a>, hero and role model of Henry Kissinger, whose metternichian approach to international affairs as national security advisor to Nixon, later Secretary of State under Nixon and Ford in the United States, 1968-1976, saw pursuit and promotion of notions of a two or three power world model in which the interests of lesser states were utterly disregarded, creating the basis for many ongoing miserable conflicts which have become more inflamed with the removal of the cold war packaging, direction and savagery. That mindset evident in the embalmed perspectives of such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Luttwak" target="_blank">Edward Luttwak</a>. Mindset that is part of the blood stream of American exceptionalism, <a href="http://look%2C%20i%20love%20our%20country%20so%20much.%20and%20i%20know%20we%E2%80%99re%20coming%20back.%20for%20more%20than%20200%20years%2C%20through%20every%20crisis%2C%20we%E2%80%99ve%20always%20come%20back.%20%28cheers.%29%20people%20have%20predicted%20our%20demise%20ever%20since%20george%20washington%20was%20criticized%20for%20being%20a%20mediocre%20surveyor%20with%20a%20bad%20set%20of%20wooden%20false%20teeth.%20%28laughter.%29%20and%20so%20far%2C%20every%20single%20person%20that%E2%80%99s%20bet%20against%20america%20has%20lost%20money%20because%20we%20always%20come%20back.%20%28cheers%2C%20applause.%29%20we%20come%20through%20ever%20fire%20a%20little%20stronger%20and%20a%20little%20better./" target="_blank">Clintonist we-will-be-great-again (see second last para)</a> as well as the now dominant American right.<br />
<br />
And now we have Charlie exceptionalism, driven as wildly as extreme Islamist exceptionalism. And shouting drowns out thinking, war drowns out policy, war in its own exceptionalism, war as a virtue for some industry, war easily made and easily armed, war increasingly unconventional.<br />
---<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-22/siege-visitors/5983674" target="_blank">See how even my local tourist office wants to exploit terrorism-mindedness for business</a>.<br />
<br />
I recall, in the wake of 9/11 and at the beginning of the Iraq invasion, in 2003, listening to talkback radio, driving at night, in which people in Sydney were ringing in with all sorts of apprehensions, explaining how their attitudes and behaviours had changed, how they looked at parked cars, how they did not want to stop in strange places in the dark... There is a recent shift in body language, in how people smile or seem to smile less, meet the eye less in negotiating passage through confined spaces in shopping places. I'm thinking it's not just Howard-encouraged self-centredness, it's a depth of irrational apprehension, adding now with economic insecurities with their real base and as fomented by government doomsaying.<br />
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Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571732930246537804.post-6107095160019544062015-01-01T07:45:00.004+11:002015-01-08T16:44:51.378+11:00China-Australia: Hawke, Tiananmen, cabinet papers 1989<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I contributed to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jan/01/cabinet-papers-1988-89-bob-hawke-acted-alone-in-offering-asylum-to-chinese-students#comment-45579257" target="_blank">discussion at The Guardian</a> of former Prime Minister Hawke's action in 1989 in deciding to grant resident rights to many Chinese in Australia at the time of the Tiananmen incident.<br />
<br />
After the usual array of mainly drivel comments, a person with a Chinese name made an earnest comment to which I replied.<br />
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Most of the Chinese students here never supported the Tiananmen protest, they just used that as an excuse to get PR here. Many years later, some of those actually praise the Chinese government for the crackdown, citing the reason that the crackdown ensured the decades of prosperity to come. Many, once they got their Australian citizenship, made friends with the Chinese embassy and consulates here, actively participated in their functions and started doing business in China. They owe whatever good lives they've got here to the students massacred in Beijing, even though they never joined the protest, and they were never personally at risk of persecution.</div>
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I think that such developments will always be the case, Mr Lee. If you look back at the circumstances of the time, and the passionate commitment of this prime minister both to multiculturalism and to relations with China, it was an incisive step. To do nothing then? To undergo a process of examining the claims of every Chinese person here who did not want to go back, one by one? Remember that this Prime Minister, in his speech welcoming Chinese Communist Party General Secretary <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hu_Yaobang" style="background: transparent; color: #005689; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">Hu Yaobang</a> to parliament house in 1985, ended with the words: "Our relations with no other country is more important than our relationship with China." I drafted the rest of that speech, he added that ending. His regard for China and for Hu was very high. You are aware, I know, as other may not know, that Hu Yaobang was subsequently removed from office by Deng Xiaoping and dinosaurs for being too open to social change and student views, and his very popular 'sankuan' campaign in 1986, advocating 'generosity, tolerance and relaxation' (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Political-Thought-Republic-Contemporary/dp/0765605694/" style="background: transparent; color: #005689; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">good account here</a>). As you know it was Hu's death in 1989 that led to the events in Tiananmen. You also know that Hu's successor as General Secretary, Zhao Ziyang, similarly held in high regard by Hawke, met with and struggled to find accommodation with the protesting students in 1989 and you know that after the uproar and martial law, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner_of_the_State:_The_Secret_Journal_of_Premier_Zhao_Ziyang" style="background: transparent; color: #005689; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">Zhao was placed under house arrest</a>. So it's important to understand that Hawke's judgement was informed by a deep despair at the direction of events in China, but also a determinedly strategic perspective in relation to China and in relation to multiculturalism in Australia.</div>
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Someone earlier in this discussion suggested the Hawke decision was calculated politically, another said it was just emotional. I recommend that people study the complexity instead.</div>
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Mr Lee, Mr Hawke went on to continue dealing with China, but he had made an important stand at a critical time. It is surely in Australia's interest that China survive as an intact nation. We have such crappy political management and lousy international international strategy and a seriously declining human rights record that we can hardly preach to anyone, though we continue to do that and in our broad culture see little of Asia other than through the prism of beer glasses in Phuket and Bali.</div>
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We cannot point fingers constructively, though present leaders, with ten fleas under ten fingers, to use a Chinese expression, have to resort to hitting with heads and chests to maintain their sense of right to bully.</div>
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China has no foreign example to follow in finding its political way: not the US, not Russia, not India, certainly not Australia. I am conscious of strictures on life in China. At the same time, I do wish people would recognise that what has happened in China in the period since 1978 is the greatest revolution and change in human history, unprecedented in scale and in the increase in the quality of life of people.</div>
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And all the while, in this country, people choose to be led by fools, can't see their good fortune, grow more selfish (what an example to the Chinese middle classes) and have so little knowledge of history they approach the future rudderless.</div>
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My comment on Tianamen in the Sydney Morning Herald, 6 June 1989, is crudely copied here.</div>
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Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571732930246537804.post-89379916316853602502014-12-24T01:45:00.000+11:002014-12-24T01:54:25.283+11:00influencing the future<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In my previous blog entry "Malcolm Fraser: end the alliance" I suggested that the future needs greater engagement and collaboration of people younger than myself (aged 71) for the political health of the nation.<br />
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An eminent person who has had a major role in encouraging public debate and sensible policy development wrote privately, with exclamation marks: "But is our generation... not able to influence how we proceed."<br />
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I warmly endorse the idea that we should seek to influence how the nation proceeds... and I note that 'our generation' includes an <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/it/speeches/2014/december/documents/papa-francesco_20141222_curia-romana.html" target="_blank">Argentinian pope who seems influential</a>. Gone are the days when policemen looked young and prime ministers looked young, now the pope is a contemporary. The pope has the advantage of being still in office.<br />
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I do not see MF's arguments about Australian strategic policy having much influence. There is a lack of connect. There are problems in that parts of the electorate do not forgive him for past events, but those people are not very much younger people. There is a problem, more importantly, in my view, that younger generations do not react well to lecturing from the ancient. We need to avoid the <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/it/speeches/2014/december/documents/papa-francesco_20141222_curia-romana.html" target="_blank">first disease mentioned by the pope in his team pep-talk on 22 December.</a> The public, not least many of those who thought Abbott would bring deliverance, is being shocked away from the shockers who pronounce they've got the answers. So we have to offer something other than gold-plated opinion.<br />
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<a href="http://yathink.com.au/" target="_blank">Noely of Yathink</a> shoved me into resuming this kind of writing–starting this blog–a couple of months ago. Specifically she was concerned, in her rage against the betrayers of the present, that people like me, knowing the history and depth of issues, must not remain silent.<br />
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I think the answer is in there, in the ability, if willing, of our generation to speak not only of current opinion but with introspection and self-critically about the past. I note however <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Nicolson" target="_blank">Harold Nicholson</a>'s alleged observation that he had never, in the archives of any foreign ministry on the planet, read a record of conversation in which the person taking the record had not won. It's not easy to be frank about the past.<br />
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I suspect that having had my career mucked by illness I have had a longer space in which to become independent minded and feel a freedom and a need to speak publicly than some of my generation, with notable wonderful exceptions. Imagine if many more of those who used to argue policy within the walls of government or political apparatus were to bring minds into the open and demonstrate policy argument. Not to demand control of debate–we do not need a gerontocracy–but to show how to throw light on complex issues.<br />
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What is the prospective political process that we seek to influence.<br />
<br />
This week the print edition of <i>Guardian Weekly </i>led its front page with editorial beginning: "<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2014/dec/16/guardian-weekly-year-review-2014-people-v-state" target="_blank">In 2014, people power took on the state in a battle for minds and the streets</a>." Despite <a href="http://www.marchaustralia.com/" target="_blank">March in March</a>, people 'in the streets' in Australia are those on the internet. There is a readiness for ideas but haste to conclusions, anxiety for answers and results. Somehow the 24 hour news cycle and the 24 second social media cycle have to mature. And in a wider view, looking at what has happened in Libya, Egypt, Syria and Ukraine, I have to say, um but... Taking to the streets is only the beginning of a process. If political stability as used to be a mantra of Australian policy towards Asia, depends, as we seldom realised, not on people staying in power but sensible regime change, we should also understand that taking to the streets–or indeed being a parliamentary opposition–is only really effective if there are good policy-making processes present or achievable.<br />
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<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/dec/19/politics-in-2014-the-coalition-dished-out-slogans-and-its-sentence-is-clear" target="_blank">Leonore Taylor's concluding comment in her roundup of 2014 in The Guardian</a> is important:<br />
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... the electorate can barely remember a political leader who tried to level with them to conduct a bigger public conversation, an actual discussion of detailed policies and their consequences. The question for 2015 is, will either of the present major party leaders dare to try? </blockquote>
Perhaps 'our generation' can contribute in some ways here if we bring our skills and habits of private policy out into the open. Openness has to start and influence is surely only going to be achieved via openness.<br />
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We are however, habituated in a distinctly British kind of process, in which the man on horseback commanded and told people what to do. That is still the main model of those who grab for power in our parliaments, also the historical expectation of serfly voters. That's not the future: the country has more diversity culturally and the young are declining to register to vote, see <a href="http://www.aec.gov.au/about_aec/publications/youth_study/youth_study_1/page03.htm" target="_blank">this</a> and <a href="http://theconversation.com/finding-the-missing-youth-vote-16958" target="_blank">this</a>. The <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2014/dec/11/generation-y-have-every-right-to-be-angry-at-baby-boomers-share-of-wealth" target="_blank">anger of the young against older generations</a> relates to power as well as money. For our generation to influence, why and to what should anyone listen? That's a serous question, not a rhetorical conclusion. And for the Asian, or Arab, or African, or other Australians of different background, do we show them anything to trust? Must they assimilate in coming into the tent or do they have new ways to offer?<br />
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._H._Liddell_Hart" target="_blank">Basil Liddell-Hart</a>, great British military strategist at the end of his life came to the view that it's not what you say you you want or say you are doing it's what you do that has lasting effect<br />
: that the savagery of the Spanish Civil War could be related to the savagery of the Peninsular War with Napoleon from which the word guerrilla arose; and that the terrorist violence arising in the Middle East in the end of the 1960s could be connected to the violence of Lawrence of Arabia. My view, as expressed in writing to the then Australia Foreign Minister in 2003 (no reply) was that:<br />
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<span style="background-color: #ffffcc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">...it is in the nature of modern war that it tends, more than anything else - certainly it does not tend to ‘victory’ - to import into the righteous invading countries the problems you seek to eliminate by invading... </span><span style="background-color: #ffffcc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Your assertion of effectiveness of violence in international policy drifts down to validate the use of violence by non-states in international affairs, and increasingly by individuals in national and sub-national affairs, and indeed, I suggest, in domestic life. We are dealing not just with a narrow national security issue but a large ethical dimension.</span> <span style="background-color: #ffffcc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">[Shortly after going to war in Iraq the government had ironically launched an expensive media campaign against domestic violence, that is, against the presumption by anyone of the right to bash up others because they think they are right and have a right.]</span></blockquote>
Whether my generation can help get us into a better ethical dimension remains to be seen.<br />
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Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571732930246537804.post-13975702841368746412014-12-18T18:18:00.001+11:002014-12-18T18:18:33.900+11:00Malcolm Fraser: end the alliance<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In the January-February 2015 edition of the American journal <a href="http://nationalinterest.org/feature/america-australias-dangerous-ally-11858" target="_blank"><i>The National Interest</i></a>, former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser sets out his arguments for ending the Australia-United States alliance. The introduction of the argument is below. It is a vision statement deserving attention, but at the present time it seems unlikely to draw much political support in Australia. More the pity. It is a sensible case.<br />
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My own argument has tended to be that within the alliance we can be a better ally by having a more independent-minded voice and arguing sense to the United States. This is an concern I have expressed for a long time, and which I believe is very feasible. But even that kind of mature adjustment within the alliance seems elusive in a situation where the present Australian government is lame-brained and capable at best of marching up and down whinging its own importance and shaking its fists ridiculously at too many other governments, while the alternative government seems dedicated to simpering sniffling anxiety to hide behind this Prime Minister whose capacity and judgement they should vigorously question.<br />
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The question with Malcolm Fraser's vision statement is how on earth do we get to consider it?<br />
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At the core is the seeming inability of younger generations (I am 71, it really isn't my job) to collaborate to find new Australian national political identity. There is a modicum of support for The Greens, who offer the only existing institutional base around which new perspectives might coalesce, but The Greens have a somewhat self-isolating purist approach which limits their prospects.<br />
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A great deal of the problem of the future, of the Australia of younger generations, must rest with Fraser's successor as conservative prime minister, John Howard, who so thoroughly endorsed and encouraged perspectives of self interest and led the way now being followed vigorously by Howard's successor on the conservative side, Abbott, in destruction of the infrastructure of community.<br />
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I think it's here, back in here, inside national affairs, that the change process must begin and have wider effect. And it seems to me that change has to come relatively from the conservative side of politics. Certainly Labor on the notional left has more progressive policies which benefit community, but they are shy of articulating strategy, stuck in the madness of hoping to slip into government on the basis of Abbott's hopelessness, perhaps also hamstrung because the union movement at the party's core serves not only those on modest incomes, but also those whose incomes have become massive. Things may change as more and more jobs are shed in the construction and manufacturing industries in the next several years. There will not however then arise a mass of working class passion, but a rage among displaced affluent middle class. There is a timidity in the electorate at large, a timidity born of obsession with consumption, high mortgages and working and private lifestyles that gives people a very narrow focus on self-interest and notions of economic management. (Along with a simplicity of American(Hollywood)-oriented cultural values.) Even young people seem unthinkingly to say "the Liberals are better at economic management" when there is so much evidence that they are making a muck of it.<br />
<br />
What is needed is a coalition of younger people, if they exist, of the kind of persuasion of the old 'wet' side of the Liberal Party, the party of Baume and Chaney and McPhee and the like, to come out of hiding and start spanking the madness of the domestic policies of the present government. So long as the arguments of Fraser and Burnside and the like speak mainly to international and refugee issues, the battle is not even engaged; rather, they are placed on the outer. The main battle is over economics and the place of community. Whether we serve the economy or the economy serves community.<br />
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The next debate must also embrace other cultures in Australia, which must be encouraged to enter the mainstream. Another book there...I note that Moslem men who bring their families to my seaside town on summer holidays articulate passionate and reasoned hostility towards the United States and the Australian alliance in private conversation. These arguments need to get to them too, so they see that there are sensible thinkers in the Anglo community.<br />
<br />
....So I don't think that the laudable arguments below will not get traction until the debate front goes domestic too.<br />
<a href="http://nationalinterest.org/feature/america-australias-dangerous-ally-11858?page=5" target="_blank">This is the opening of Malcolm Fraser's essay in the January-February 2015 edition of The National Interest</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, Baskerville, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30.1949996948242px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.5em;">
IT IS time for Australia to end its strategic dependence on the United States. The relationship with America, which has long been regarded as beneficial, has now become dangerous to Australia’s future. We have effectively ceded to America the ability to decide when Australia goes to war. Even if America were the most perfect and benign power, this posture would still be incompatible with the integrity of Australia as a sovereign nation. It entails not simply deference but submission to Washington, an intolerable state of affairs for a country whose power and prosperity are increasing and whose national interests dictate that it enjoy amicable, not hostile, relations with its neighbors, including China.<br />As painful as a reassessment of relations may be for intellectual and policy elites, there are four principal reasons why one is long overdue. First, despite much blather about a supposed unanimity of national purpose, the truth is that the United States and Australia have substantially different values systems. The idea of American exceptionalism is contrary to Australia’s sense of egalitarianism. Second, we have seen the United States act in an arbitrary, imprudent and capricious fashion. It has made a number of ill-advised and ill-informed decisions concerning Eastern Europe, Russia and the Middle East. Third, at the moment, because of U.S. military installations in Australia, if America goes to war in the Pacific, it will take us to war as well—without an independent decision by Australia. Finally, under current circumstances, in any major contest in the Pacific, our relationship with America would make us a strategic target for America’s enemies. It is not in Australia’s interest to be in that position.</blockquote>
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Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571732930246537804.post-63266864448040656682014-12-18T01:41:00.002+11:002014-12-18T03:22:49.773+11:00meanwhile in Syria... and Sydney<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/magazine/theo-padnos-american-journalist-on-being-kidnapped-tortured-and-released-in-syria.html?_r=2" target="_blank"><br /></a>
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/magazine/theo-padnos-american-journalist-on-being-kidnapped-tortured-and-released-in-syria.html?_r=2" target="_blank">This is a valuable account of life among jihadis</a> by Theo Padnos, American would-be journalist and student of Arabic and Islam, for 20 months a prisoner of the Al Nusra front, fighting ISIS on the ground. The realities of a 'normal' brutality, of expectation of martyrdom among young men who will preach or bully and then ask about meeting single European women.<br />
<br />
While there is evidently no oeganisational link between this world and the tragic figure who took hostages in a Sydney cafe this week (variously described <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/12/16/sydney-siege-three-people-dead-including-gunman" target="_blank">straightforwardly here</a>, <a href="http://www.pedestrian.tv/news/arts-and-culture/russell-brand-weighs-in-on-the-aftermath-of-martin/7e90140f-f796-44b6-b7aa-57a4d78d6dc1.htm" target="_blank">by New Matilda's Chris Graham here</a> and <a href="https://newmatilda.com/2014/12/15/siege-has-stopped-nation-10-predictions-martin-place" target="_blank">incisively critically by Russell Brand here</a>), his mind would seem cut from the same cloth as the jihadis described by Padnos.<br />
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We do well to step away from our conventional perspectives if we are to understand what this whole jihadi business is. Noting that too much of our perspectives in the west are from the remoteness of satellites, drones, fighter aircraft and wishful thinking and amateur ideological assertions of political leaders seeking to simplify and prance... or just fall into line. I commend <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ8ZYAvWTxo" target="_blank">Russell Brand</a> for his lively interpretation of the way the issues are perverted and made more difficult by much government and media action and interpretation.<br />
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(<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Hj8pTdpxQI" target="_blank">Also see Russell Brand in this video on poverty</a> and the virtue of spending money currently used for bombing the Middle East on building better societies)<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.eurasiareview.com/17122014-isis-takes-pounding-nusra-takes-ground-syrias-security-vacuum-oped/" target="_blank">Clint Watts, writing in Eurasia Review, offers interpretation of Padnos's story</a>, in particular that given the fluidity of loyalty among jihadis, the bombing of one or the training of one to fight another has only destructive effects, especially in the absence of any plan of dealing with the Assad regime in Damascus. We stand, by current western policies, to inherit only wider and more dangerous jihadism, more savvy in attacking the west, better armed and skilled.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.eurasiareview.com/17122014-israeli-role-syrian-conflict-brought-open-oped/" target="_blank">Again in Eurasia Review, this article by Nicola Nasser, an Arab journalist on the Palestine West Bank, describes or asserts Israeli support and sanctuary for Al Nusra</a> and collaboration in attacks on the Syrian government. Israel's interest being in weakening and diverting the strength of its Syrian enemy away from Israel. I am reminded that several years ago in Sydney a Lebanese Moslem man asserted to me that Israel now pursued a policy of encouraging war between Moslems. There is more news of <a href="https://www.google.com.au/search?q=israel+air+attacks+syria&oq=israel+air+attacks+syria" target="_blank">Israeli air strikes accessible with this search</a>,... and about <a href="https://www.google.com.au/search?q=israel+al+nusra" target="_blank">Israel and al Nusra here</a>. See <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.630584" target="_blank"><i>Haaretz</i></a> for an Israeli perspective.<br />
<br /></div>Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571732930246537804.post-67416671044554339982014-12-12T12:16:00.003+11:002014-12-12T12:41:05.341+11:00The complex issues associated with Ukraine's nuclear energy industry and export of urainium from Australia to Ukraine<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has said he wants to supply uranium to the Ukraine for its power industry. He said this in the same moment as expressing a desire to visit Ukraine to see established a memorial to the passengers of the downed Malaysian Airlines flight in eastern Ukraine. My initial reaction was towards the continuing absurdity of this prime minister in his obsession with issues he somehow thinks make him a hero, but which in reality make him look unsuitable for office to many Australians. Many people, I am sure, share my visceral reaction towards the notion of exporting uranium to the Ukraine. It seems desirable, however, to do some serious analysis.<br />
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This perhaps notionally simple question brings together a complex of difficult issues.</div>
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Here are key background factors:</div>
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Ukraine was for a very long time a republic within the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union" target="_blank">Union of Soviet Socialist Republics [USSR] which disintegrated in 1991</a>. At that time there were some four and a half thousand Soviet missiles aimed at the United States located in the Ukraine. Almost two thousand of these were transferred to the USSR in 1991-2, and the remainder became the subject initially of <a href="http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/Deterrence/Trilateral.shtml" target="_blank">trilateral agreement between the US, Russia and Ukraine in January 1994</a> and then the <a href="https://www.msz.gov.pl/en/p/wiedenobwe_at_s_en/news/memorandum_on_security_assurances_in_connection_with_ukraine_s_accession_to_the_treaty_on_the_npt" target="_blank">Budapest Memorandum of December 1994</a> between those three plus the adherance of other nuclear weapon states notably United Kingdom. This declaration gave assurances of the territorial integrity of Ukraine, in a context of the remaining nuclear weapons on Ukraine's territory being transferred to Russia and being dismantled, and Ukraine acceding to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferation_of_Nuclear_Weapons" target="_blank">Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty</a> (NPT) as a non-nuclear weapon state (NNWS). <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances" target="_blank">It is a political statement, not a treaty</a>. In addition to the <i>Memorandum</i> there was annexed to it a <i>declaration</i>: Annex II -<a href="http://www.msz.gov.pl/en/p/wiedenobwe_at_s_en/news/memorandum_on_security_assurances_in_connection_with_ukraine_s_accession_to_the_treaty_on_the_npt?printMode=true" target="_blank"> see the text here</a>. I encourage you to read that. Russia argues that the continuing recruitment of former Soviet allies into NATO and placement of new defence systems in such countries was contrary to the spirit of the declaration. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/24/ukraine-crimea-" target="_blank">Please also read former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser's appeal for sanity on this subject</a>. </div>
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The NPT recognised as nuclear weapon states those states which at the time the treaty was signed already possessed nuclear weapons: the USA, USSR, UK, France and the People's Republic of China. These countries undertook not to transfer control or capacity to develop nuclear weapons technology to NNWS. A new nuclear safeguards regime was established under the treaty to prevent diversion of nuclear materials to non-peaceful purposes. There was then, in the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/conf/npt/2005/npttreaty.html" target="_blank">text of the NPT</a> a great emphasis on the right of NNWS to have access to peaceful uses of nuclear energy. To enable which NNWS had to enter into safeguards arrangements of a new kind as set out in the IAEA's <a href="http://www.iaea.org/publications/documents/infcircs/structure-and-content-agreements-between-agency-and-states-required" target="_blank">InfCirc 153</a>.</div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
PARENTHESIS: When I returned to the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs from an overseas posting in January 1970 I found a great deal of agitation among my colleagues about whether Australia, having signed the NPT, would ratify. The treaty was to come into force (see Article IX in text at link above) when forty countries had ratified it. Signature is a step governments take when they put their name on a new treaty. Ratification of treaties takes place under constitutional processes of different countries. <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/Publications_Archive/CIB/cib9596/96cib17" target="_blank">This is a debated issue in Australia (see this paper)</a> but in 1970 all it required was the will of the executive government to do the job, no consultation with the parliament. There were substantial lobbies in Australia for both nuclear power and nuclear weapons. The decision to ratify was taken at the last moment in March 1970. Someone else can research how the US brought pressure on Australia then, or what security guarantees Australia sought. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Had we not signed before ratification we could have acceded later, but that would have a smell of recalcitrance and leave the farm gate open for the raging advocates of Australian possession of nuclear weapons. A space had been cleared in the commonwealth owned Jervis Bay Territory for a Canadian designed CANDU reactor, which was easier to operate as it did not require <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriched_uranium" target="_blank">enrichment of uranium</a> (a difficult and expensive process of increasing the proportion of the isotope U<span style="font-size: x-small;">235</span> over the predominant U<span style="font-size: x-small;">238</span>), reaction being developed by using <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_water" target="_blank">heavy water</a> rather than light water, meaning a need to separate the rare deuterium, H<span style="font-size: x-small;">2</span>0 with an extra neutron on, easier than the separation of the heavy and toxic uranium isotopes. The nuclear advocates within and around the government would also have known that this reactor could provide a sneaky route to acquisition of weapons usable plutonium, something that only entered political consciousness in the USA in the mid-1970s and especially with the arrival of the Carter Administration and the appointment of<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nye" target="_blank"> Joe Nye</a> as Deputy Undersecretary of State for Nuclear Non-Proliferation. When urgent steps were taken to stop Pakistan, Iran and South Korea getting CANDU reactors and plutonium separation facilities.</blockquote>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpsbD_k3OnPDhiSlcFelq9GGpc2P2pKpgT-_HYLHZ6rWMr6k204KJxy8GhyZ27UYtW28zDsn6euMO9TzgyWMpQt6dE-tWRFmVcWAxhfmbETG2ME4-7q0UPQ0qOp4ZNDGsnQVivhuwhqoY/s1600/141211candu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpsbD_k3OnPDhiSlcFelq9GGpc2P2pKpgT-_HYLHZ6rWMr6k204KJxy8GhyZ27UYtW28zDsn6euMO9TzgyWMpQt6dE-tWRFmVcWAxhfmbETG2ME4-7q0UPQ0qOp4ZNDGsnQVivhuwhqoY/s1600/141211candu.jpg" height="243" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;">Few people using the car park at the end of the Jervis Bay Road <br />
know that it was the site cleared for a nuclear power station</td></tr>
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END PARENTHETICAL BIT... (another book)<br />
<br />
Ukraine (in parallel with Kazakhstan, also former soviet republic) was only the second country to abandon nuclear weapons, after<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction" target="_blank"> South Africa</a>.<br />
<br />
Australia's uranium export policies have, since the 1970s, with their slow evolution, maintained focus on nuclear <i>safeguards</i> rather than nuclear <i>safety</i>. This reflecting our obligations under the NPT. (Another book needed to discuss safety, but my general position is that while the technology is not bad, the problem is the absence of any evidence that any human society can be durable enough to handle operation and waste management issues for as long as needed.)<br />
<br />
In terms of the NPT and the general drift of Australian uranium export policy, Ukraine gets a tick.<br />
<br />
But the situation is much more complicated than that and it would, to use technical terms, be bone-headed crazy to approve uranium export on just that basis.<br />
<br />
As another legacy from the USSR, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Ukraine" target="_blank">Ukraine produces half its power needs from nuclear power stations.</a> Ukraine consumes twice as much energy as Germany per capita. The other half of Ukraine's energy needs come from oil and gas supplied by Russia. Pipelines for supply of Russian oil and gas to western Europe run through Ukraine.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Nuclear_Power_Plant" target="_blank">Chernobyl, the nuclear power plant </a>whose accident in 1986 was the worst ever nuclear power station disaster, is in Ukraine. Other nuclear power stations in Ukraine are of similar age and similar design quality and maintainability as Chernobyl #4.<br />
<br />
The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Ukraine#Independent_Ukraine" target="_blank">political history of Ukraine since the collapse of the USSR</a> has been to say the least complex. In the course of this, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_gas_disputes" target="_blank">Russia has a number of times exerted pressure on Ukraine through oil supply and cut-off</a>, usually in circumstances where Ukraine is not paying its bills.<br />
<br />
The current agreement on continued oil and gas supplies from Russia to Ukraine also tangles with agreement to continue Russian supplies to western Europe. This is the soft underbelly to all the talk of sanctions against Russia. There may be a point when substitution may be possible away from Russian supply of western Europe, indeed, <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/11/07/U-S-Oil-Exports-Hit-57-Year-High" target="_blank">the United States has recently become an oil exporter</a> and would enjoy that. As noted in an earlier blog entry however, the driving down of the international oil price recently by Saudi Arabia and the United States not only weakens Russia and its efforts in Ukraine and Syria, it also has grave consequences for the United States and world economy: world price now around $70 a barrel, break even for junk bond financed shale oil producers in the US around $90.<br />
<br />
Supplying uranium to Ukraine would solve no issues, the idea is adequately described in <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/foreign-affairs/uranium-talk-thumbs-nose-at-vladimir-putin/story-fn59nm2j-1227153180794?nk=8fad4adc8e1b88b4d9da86278847bb83" target="_blank"><i>The Australian</i>'s headline "Uranium talks thumb nose at Vladimir Putin</a>" ... perhaps a linguistic step upwards from shirtfronting, but a very very bad approach to international relations. Yes, it's elementally of the same cloth as Abbott's conflict-promoting approach the national politics, but it's very dangerous and frivolous internationally.<br />
<br />
It would seem likely that any sale of uranium to Ukraine would mean delivery to a United States entity most likely Westinghouse, who have been selling fuel rods to Ukraine. So the income stream from any sale of Australian uranium to Ukraine would mainly be to the enricher and fuel rod fabricators in the United States. Note this in reading any advocacy for this sale.<br />
<br />
—————————<br />
<br />
<b>So, to cut this short</b> (it really needs a book or two, submit any questions in comment section) <b>how should we score Ukraine as a customer for uranium?</b><br />
<br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>NPT and nuclear safeguards compliance — 10/10</li>
<li>Nuclear industry safety history — 1/10</li>
<li>Current state of nuclear plant — 1/10</li>
<li>Stability of regime, assurance of viable state control, war risks — 1/10</li>
<li>Contribution to general arms control and conflict resolution — 0/10</li>
<li>Solution of an energy problem — 2/10</li>
<li>Prospect of being paid — 4/10</li>
<li>Australian national interest — 0/10</li>
</ol>
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<div>
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Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571732930246537804.post-79777668837390834522014-12-11T21:23:00.000+11:002014-12-25T18:54:34.916+11:00Whedon on Romney, so relevant to the present Australian Government<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I had forgotten about this wonderful commercial by Buffy (and more) creator Jos Whedon for Zomney for President. It does seem apposite for our present moment in which our Prime Minister is reinventing himself, <a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/pm-meets-ukrainian-president-petro-poroshenko-and-offers-to-supply-ukraine-with-uranium-and-coal/story-fnii5sms-1227152393840" target="_blank">offering coal and uranium to the Ukraine, planning to visit and place a memorial in the war zone of eastern Ukraine</a> — and surely then should make a memorial visit to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster" target="_blank">Chernobyl</a>, though he might have a lurking suspicion that his security czar Morrison might move on from <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australia-shuts-borders-to-ebolaaffected-countries-20141027-11ciut.html" target="_blank">banning visits from any country known to have experienced Ebola</a> to banning any person known to have become brighter or perhaps luminescent as a result of visiting Chernobyl.<br />
<br />
Anyway, apply this locally:<br />
<br />
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Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571732930246537804.post-86145769712870833942014-12-04T18:14:00.001+11:002014-12-04T21:15:42.572+11:00the world is complex: US, Russia, Ukraine, oil, global economy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://www.salon.com/2014/12/04/new_york_times_propagandists_exposed_finally_the_truth_about_ukraine_and_putin_emerges" target="_blank">Salon has published an article asserting that the crisis in Ukraine and the civil war are substantially the fault of the United States</a>. Skip through the argy bargy slanging off and consider the merits of the arguments, including in the articles to which links are provided. Such as this:<br />
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<a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141769/john-j-mearsheimer/why-the-ukraine-crisis-is-the-wests-fault" target="_blank">"Why the UkraineCrisis Is the West’s Fault: The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin" in the journal Foreign Affairs</a>, emblematic centre of the American foreign policy establishment.</div>
<br />
One of the side issues in this has to be the shooting down of the Malaysian Airlines flight flying above the civil war zone. On a path which the Ukraine government left open. You can limit the discussion to who fired the shot, who owned and supplied the weapon, who controlled the use of the weapon... but if you take the steps further and think about the wider issues of the origins and provocation of cicil war, the puff-chested macho displays towards the Russians become things of dress-up belligerency, the boy with the trumpet following the flag, the antithesis of problem solving.<br />
<br />
The general stridency of anti-Russian policy may undo us all...<br />
<br />
Four weeks ago, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/economics-blog/2014/nov/09/us-iran-russia-oil-prices-shale" target="_blank"><i>The Guardian </i>argued that the United States and Saudi Arabia were driving the price of oil down as a strategic weapon against Russia</a>.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/dec/03/oil-collapse-leads-world-economy-trouble" target="_blank">A month later the situation is much more dangerous for the world economy, as oil prices fall further</a>... More in this <a href="http://www.eurasiareview.com/04122014-falling-oil-prices-spark-financial-crisis-analysis/" target="_blank">here</a>. If indeed there was such an American effort to use oil as a weapon against Russia, it would seem very likely that the weapon will shoot the Americans in the foot, given the risky loan basis of much new oil venturing in the USA, unsustainable at present prices. A dual shock possible: a shock failure of the US to maintain its recent self-sufficiency in oil production and a new shock to the international economy more serious than the last one. Or a triple shock if and as and when oil prices go north again in economically difficult times... Consider also what other damaged countries may do. Russia will depend more on its energy exports to China.<br />
<br />
Hello, China. How many countries can you save this month? They expect it of you, you know, but only if you stay meek. <a href="http://www.eurasiareview.com/04122014-one-belt-one-road-china-centre-global-geopolitics-geo-economics-analysis/" target="_blank">An Indian perspective here</a>.<br />
<br />
I observed in a news commentary in 1989, actually thoughts offered privately by a Chinese official at the time, that the Chinese leadership did not have the maturity and sensitivity to handle the crisis arising then in Tiananmen Square. How easy it is to hammer the Chinese Government for mishandling that.<br />
<br />
By comparison, capacity to handle a coming economic crisis is ... where? This wasn't even on the agenda at the G20 meeting last month and there seems little willingness in political quarters to focus on the situation now. Alarm at the prospects for the Australian economy is constrained by very insular thinking: the general narrowness of the government's perspective, with just a small concession now that contractionary policy is unwise (as it has been throughout the time they imposed it and told everyone to be afraid) and with the financial markets in the hands of people who have no knowledge of history and precious little understanding of strategic matters beyond short-term money-shoving.</div>
Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571732930246537804.post-16522240524397513302014-12-04T17:12:00.001+11:002014-12-04T17:25:58.518+11:00power and stubbornness, power and willingness, 'power' and blindness<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.5pt;">Four months into the internationally declared
Ebola emergency, in December 2014, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/03/cuba-global-medical-record-shames-us-blockade-ebola" target="_blank">who leads the world in direct medical support to fight the epidemic</a>?</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.5pt;"><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/03/cuba-global-medical-record-shames-us-blockade-ebola" target="_blank">The answer to this question as discussed in <i>The Guardian</i> today</a> is illuminating, as the country concerned is truly in a
situation exemplifying the futility of long term superpower grudges. And
illustrates how difficult it is to turn around big battleships, even when they
don't work, or should be going somewhere else.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.5pt;">While<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Guardian</i>'s discussion focuses on
that country and the United States, we should note that the United States has
committed massively to the Ebola challenge on the ground. Which brings us to
consider just how limited the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/ebola-abbott-government-relents-will-send-australian-volunteers-to-treat-victims-20141104-11grgy.html" target="_blank">Australian 'contribution'</a> is. And to
note again another new moment in United States criticism of the Australian Government... also to
note that the also-conservative <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/10/bill-shorten-us-dragging-australia-kicking-and-screaming-into-ebola-fight" target="_blank">Labor Party feels safe to use the US view to criticise the poverty of the government's response</a>.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/dec/04/richard-di-natale-ebola-liberia-video" target="_blank">Senator-Dr Richard di Natale, in Liberia at his own expense</a> and informed by the Australian Government that he will have no consular assistance if in trouble, reports also that the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-04/ebola-response-hampered-by-travel-bans-says-greens-di-natale/5940120" target="_blank">decision of the government to close the door to anyone from an Ebola-affected country has done us considerable political damag</a><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-04/ebola-response-hampered-by-travel-bans-says-greens-di-natale/5940120" target="_blank">e and impaired the Ebola response more widely</a>. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;">Life follows consistent patterns at many levels. <a href="http://aplaceof.info/peace/" target="_blank">I argued years ago</a> that the willingness of the government to go and act with violence in another country in a sense of righteousness fed down to increase community and domestic violence. <a href="http://suburbanfoodforest.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/edge-michael-pollan-i-should-wcomplexity.html" target="_blank">In my garden blog this week I talked about the permaculture concept of edge</a> and realised what I was writing was very relevant to the incessant clang of this government shutting its mind and doors to people and ideas. Tragically it strengthens an old an negative door-closing quality of Australian community fearful thinking... to break which requires political leadership of a positive kind.</span></span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #c0a154; color: #333333; line-height: 16.2287998199463px;">Edge is productive, overlaps are productive, edge is the basis of creativity, not only for plant life but also for human life in community. No edge, no connection – </span><i style="background-color: #c0a154; color: #333333; line-height: 16.2287998199463px;">no multiculturalism –</i><span style="background-color: #c0a154; color: #333333; line-height: 16.2287998199463px;"> no new life, limited creativity and imagination. Perhaps I should also write about this in my</span><a href="http://strategiesforaustralia.blogspot.com.au/" style="background-color: #c0a154; color: #a054c0; line-height: 16.2287998199463px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"> strategic directions blog</a><span style="background-color: #c0a154; color: #333333; line-height: 16.2287998199463px;">, my country seems increasingly anxious about shoulders that come to rub it in this complex world. Seize the day, not shut the door... Which leads back to Michael [Pollan]'s comment about peoples' concerns about his lawn. The dominant </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme" style="background-color: #c0a154; color: #a054c0; line-height: 16.2287998199463px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">meme</a><span style="background-color: #c0a154; color: #333333; line-height: 16.2287998199463px;"> being that gardening is about plonking in and then maintaining the barricades with weapons various, to keep permanent all those arrangements you stubbornly want unchanged.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #c0a154; color: #333333; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; line-height: 16.2287998199463px;">But actually, can't.</span></blockquote>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
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Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571732930246537804.post-68010649303589413192014-11-18T07:58:00.001+11:002014-11-18T11:24:05.359+11:00The rage against Chinese ownership of agricultural land in Australia<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="tr_bq">
When the rednecked populist radio jock Alan Jones attacked the Prime Minister on the subject of the free trade agreement with China, <i>The Guardian</i> reported this exchange:</div>
<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Guardian Text Egyptian Web', Georgia, serif; line-height: 12px; margin-bottom: 1rem; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">The conservative 2GB broadcaster <a class=" u-underline" data-component="auto-linked-tag" data-link-name="auto-linked-tag" href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/alan-jones" style="-webkit-transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out; background: transparent; border-bottom-color: rgb(220, 220, 220); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 0.0625rem; color: #005689; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none !important; transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out;">Alan Jones</a> told Abbott he did not have a mandate for the new trade deal and repeatedly raised concerns over the sale of Australian dairy farms to Chinese entities. A Tasmanian investor, Troy Harper, said last month Chinese interests would be among investors in 50 dairy farms in Victoria as part of a deal reported to be worth $400m.</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Guardian Text Egyptian Web', Georgia, serif; line-height: 12px; margin-bottom: 1rem; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">After listing other prospective sales involving<a class=" u-underline" data-component="auto-linked-tag" data-link-name="auto-linked-tag" href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/china" style="-webkit-transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out; background: transparent; border-bottom-color: rgb(220, 220, 220); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 0.0625rem; color: #005689; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none !important; transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out;">China</a>, Jones told Abbott: “By this time next week who’s going to own little Tasmania? The public are very, very angry about this prime minister, I can tell you.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Guardian Text Egyptian Web', Georgia, serif; line-height: 12px; margin-bottom: 1rem; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Abbott said he understood people were “always anxious at what’s often referred to as selling off the farm” but “no one can buy land unless the person who currently owns the land wants to sell”.</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Guardian Text Egyptian Web', Georgia, serif; line-height: 12px; margin-bottom: 1rem; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">“Presumably you only want to sell to an overseas buyer because the overseas buyer is offering you a better price than any Australian. That’s the first point,” Abbott said.</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Guardian Text Egyptian Web', Georgia, serif; line-height: 12px; margin-bottom: 1rem; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Jones replied: “Of course … but can Tony Abbott go and buy a farm in China? The answer’s no, prime minister … nor can he buy a coal mine, nor can he buy a steel mill.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Guardian Text Egyptian Web', Georgia, serif; line-height: 12px; margin-bottom: 1rem; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Abbott said: “Well, Alan, I’m no expert on land ownership arrangements in China but China is still run by the Communist party. I’m not sure that anyone is that able to own land in China on an individual basis.”</span></blockquote>
With seeming rattled aplomb Abbott had allowed the discussion to take him into territory where he could as usual 'make it up' with the assurance of the dunderhead who just doesn't know but does not fear to say. <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/greg-hunt-uses-wikipedia-research-to-dismiss-links-between-climate-change-and-bushfires-20131023-2w1w5.html" target="_blank">One of his ministers once famously used Wikipedia</a> to refute official advice on climate change, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_Law_of_the_People's_Republic_of_China" target="_blank">it's a shame Abbott had not read Wikipedia on property ownership in China</a>.<br />
<br />
But it's a greater shame he didn't bother to clarify the situation of actual foreign ownership of agriculture in Australia, to do something to push back against the racist hysteria arising with Chinese interest in Australian agriculture.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/specials/foreign-ownership/" target="_blank">The ABC's Rural Department has this excellent article on the subject of foreign ownership of agriculture</a>.<br />
<br />
In which, regarding the selling off of 'little Tasmania' we find such information as:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Foreign investment double-standard in Tasmanian dairying<br />
Tasmania's dairy industry is heavily reliant on foreign investment. Its oldest dairy processor, Van Diemen's Land Company (VDL), has been in foreign hands for close to 200 years and the Tamar Valley Dairy recently sold to New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra.<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-29/cows-on-the-way-for-milking/5052724" style="color: #ef4824; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;"><img alt="Cows on the way for milking" src="http://www.abc.net.au/news/image/5052724-3x2-340x227.jpg" height="227" style="border: none; display: block; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" title="Cows on the way for milking" width="340" /></a><a class="inline-caption" href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-29/cows-on-the-way-for-milking/5052724" style="color: #ef4824; display: block; margin: 5px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;"><strong style="color: black; font-size: 0.9167em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase; word-wrap: break-word;">PHOTO:</strong> A line of cows, on their way for milking <span class="source" style="color: #666666; font-size: 0.9167em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: nowrap; word-wrap: break-word;">(Supplied)</span></a>While international ownership is nothing new, the story of these two processors highlights the mixed messages sent to some global businesses.<br />
A recent Van Diemen's Land Company (VDL) tender for a multi-million dollar equity investment, sparked community and media concern about a possible Chinese takeover. At least one Chinese company dropped out of the process as a result of the negative press.<br />
Yet last month Tamar Valley Dairy, a wholly-Australian owned dairy processor, was sold to a New Zealand agribusiness giant, without a murmur about foreign takeovers.</blockquote>
It's bigotry, ignorance, racism... and the Prime Minister has no way from his own cubby house at the end of that street to come out and help clarify the situation. He has risen to office on the tide of his fomented madnesses of populist hysteria. Who knows where he will go now to get it back behind him..<br />
<br />
Before you wander off to weep a bit, consider this:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;">...just under 99 per cent of Australian farm businesses are fully Australian owned and just under 90 per cent of farmland is fully Australian owned. </span></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/7127.0" target="_blank">But of course that's the work of public servants</a> and this government knows what it thinks of public servants as it knows what it thinks of the ABC, with its evil propensity to deliver facts to refute government wisdom.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1314/ForeignInvest" target="_blank">The federal parliament's own research organisation prepared this detailed study early in 2014.</a> So the facts are knowable in the parliament. Here is table from that paper:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgofXPa2RuwubPO7n_-tXG0aYKbQiD6RI82uxeK1eUvPX0LPX9bx4A4VRYKbPa9Kpbat0Bt_hClBvFAStESL23vLkl-apsxcvzDiUWTjsZ8zhSzdCgxiB6KCuD4owACfDADCNDWBBkN0wI/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-11-18+at+11.14.06+am.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgofXPa2RuwubPO7n_-tXG0aYKbQiD6RI82uxeK1eUvPX0LPX9bx4A4VRYKbPa9Kpbat0Bt_hClBvFAStESL23vLkl-apsxcvzDiUWTjsZ8zhSzdCgxiB6KCuD4owACfDADCNDWBBkN0wI/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-11-18+at+11.14.06+am.png" height="313" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
That staid old farmers' paper <a href="http://www.theland.com.au/news/agriculture/agribusiness/general-news/australia-still-owns-the-farm/2702706.aspx" target="_blank"><i>The Land</i> tried to get a few facts out in this article.</a><br />
<br />
The author of this comment has tongue in cheek, click on name for other irreverent fun:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; float: right !important; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 6px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="http://www.theland.com.au/readerscomments.aspx?commentid=1221232" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1b759a; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 19.6000003814697px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Dickytiger</strong></a></blockquote>
<blockquote>
20/06/2014 9:45:57 AM<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.6000003814697px;">You can't fool us with statistics. We know there are foreigners under the bed. They are right beside the reds. </span></blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.25em; line-height: 1.3334; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
</div>
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Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571732930246537804.post-84421126235311802582014-11-16T07:39:00.002+11:002014-11-16T08:14:51.512+11:00an extraordinary reprimand of Australia by the United States<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Let the record state: never has a United States president reprimanded Australia on Australian soil and never has an American president so bluntly and firmly as a positive ally told Australia it is strategically in the wrong.***<br />
<br />
We are a country in which the major parties fervently support the alliance with the United States, for reasons positive, obtuse, opportunist, cringely, take your pick, pick your moment.<br />
<br />
The overturning of the mean spirited and stupid policy perspectives of the Abbott government on several issues at the G20, the pigheaded and fantastically misguided imagination that they could change the world by being their stubborn ideological selves, as hosts who insist that guests eat old pig and drink plonk, has come a cropper.<br />
<br />
Read and admire:<br />
<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/15/g20-obama-puts-climate-change-in-spotlight-as-australian-agenda-sidelined">http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/15/g20-obama-puts-climate-change-in-spotlight-as-australian-agenda-sidelined</a><br />
<br />
Of course, of course, Abbott and his team will say this is just a passing moment in American president, this president will be washed away by the tea party in the Congress now and the presidential elections in two years time. But this is to fail to understand history and become entangled with US politics as not before. I wrote in an earlier entry that a very important thing for any new government is to understand the feasible and know how to get it. They have not learned from the bitter lessons of their budget, and indeed <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-15/shorten-slams-abbott-remarks-at-g20-leaders-retreat/5894142" target="_blank">Abbott, playing anti-statesman, has whined to the G20 about his failures. And will be scoffed here and abroad</a>. If I were there <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-16/putin-to-leave-g20-early-after-pressure-over-ukraine/5894556" target="_blank">I would leave early like Putin may or may not</a>.<br />
<br />
*** Nixon and Kissinger despised the Whitlam Government but did not make it a centre point of any speech. Nor did they take the opportunity to <a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/brisbane-g20/barack-obama-wins-1000-new-fans-with-university-of-queensland-g20-speech-20141115-11ng5t.html" target="_blank">address a receptive Australian audience in Australia</a> to lay it all out and get swooning support for things the Australian government hates.</div>
Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571732930246537804.post-49137460868658641562014-11-10T06:50:00.000+11:002014-11-10T07:25:27.868+11:00Casting ourselves like the old South Africa, against the world<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Climate policy is where our current leaders demonstrate the determined qualities shown by the leaders of old apartheid South Africa. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/09/australia-told-it-should-aim-for-40-cut-in-greenhouse-gases-by-2025" target="_blank">See in this report how we resist pressure to be constructive about the future</a>.<br />
<br />
There is an entrenched cultural tendency in Australia to sneer at thoughtfulness, which combines with a tendency to make up arguments to suit prejudice. As is the case with <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2014/nov/07/playing-whack-a-mole-with-australian-advisors-climate-change-myths" target="_blank">the Prime Minister's business adviser as he argues among other things about climate change</a>.<br />
<br />
It's depressing then also that the Labor party in opposition is too timid, too burned, to carry the case that the government is wrong.<br />
<br />
This week APEC in Beijing and then the hosting by Australia of the G20 in Brisbane. Another international burden thrust upon this conservative government by the previous Labor government along with membership of the Security Council which the conservatives so disparaged in opposition but which has with war and plane crashes given them so much space in which to march up and down and whip chauvinist sentiment in this centenary of the beginning of the First World War, without focus on the fact that the world fell into WWI through pigheaded focus on hard, old, military mindedness.<br />
<br />
When you are at a turning point in history only the twisted remain steadfast against change. </div>
Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571732930246537804.post-25355025108745068302014-11-06T16:12:00.000+11:002014-11-06T19:37:06.776+11:00Cate Blanchette at the Whitlam memorial service<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A wonderful intelligent speech by Cate Blanchette reflecting on the Whitlam initiatives, as they made possible her life path at various stages, as they changed the nature of Australia, as the placed women where they should have been, in equality and the placing of the arts at the centre of national life.<br />
<br />
Where Pearson's speech contains an important catalogue of the rolling back of legislation and attitude discriminatory to indigenous people, Blanchette weaves the history of removal of discrimination against women.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/cate-blanchett-pays-tribute-to-gough-whitlam-full-text-20141105-11hdb1.html" target="_blank">Transcript at SMH</a><br />
<br />
ABC News video, as uploaded to YouTube.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/6uNhvvR6XKI?rel=0" width="560"></iframe></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Excerpts:</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.5pt;">"The loss I felt came down to something very deep and very
simple. I am the beneficiary of free, tertiary education. When I went to
university I could explore different courses and engage with the student union in
extracurricular activity. It was through that that I discovered acting.I am the
product of an Australia that wanted, and was encouraged, to explore its voice
culturally.I am the beneficiary of good, free healthcare, and that meant the
little I earned after tax and rent could go towards seeing shows, bands, and
living inside my generation's expression. I am a product of the Australia
Council.I am the beneficiary of a foreign policy that put us on the world stage
and on the front foot in our region. I am the product of an Australia that
engages with the globe and engages honestly with its history and its indigenous
peoples.I am a small part of Australia's coming of age, and so many of those
initiatives were enacted when I was three... <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 18.0pt;">... Women were probably the main beneficiaries of free
tertiary education. So here today I may stand as an exemplar, but if you
combine the modernising and enabling capacity afforded women by his legislation
you can begin to see that the nation was truly changed by him through the arts
and through gender, thereby leading us towards an inclusive, compassionate
maturity. So much of this achievement is directly attributable to policy
initiatives Gough Whitlam began with a series of reforms to extend the degree
and quality of social opportunities to women in Australia."</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></blockquote>
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Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571732930246537804.post-71724126688813687142014-11-06T13:23:00.002+11:002014-11-06T13:23:41.725+11:00Noel Pearson at the memorial service for Gough Whitlam<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noel_Pearson" target="_blank">Noel Pearson</a> delivered an extraordinary speech-of-a-generation or more at the memorial service for Gough Whitlam yesterday. It began from his own experience of the massive changes to the situation and opportunities of Aboriginal and Islander people made possible by the Whitlam program. It went on to deal more broadly with issues for Australia, the transformation of Australia. Speaking before positive people and also in front of those who would corrupt it all again.<br />
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<a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/noel-pearsons-eulogy-for-gough-whitlam-praised-as-one-for-the-ages-20141105-11h7vm.html" target="_blank">The transcript is here</a>. The ABC News video-audio as uploaded to YouTube is embedded below.<br />
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Here are some excerpts:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">"Of
course recalling the Whitlam Government's legacy has been, for the past four
decades since the dismissal, a fraught and partisan business.</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Assessments
of those three highly charged years and their aftermath divide between the
nostalgia and fierce pride of the faithful, and the equally vociferous opinion
that the Whitlam years represented the nadir of national government in
Australia. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Let me venture a perspective.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><i><b>The
Whitlam government is the textbook case of reform trumping management."</b></i></span></blockquote>
<!--EndFragment--> ...<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">"...In
less than three years an astonishing reform agenda leapt off the policy
platform and into legislation and the machinery and programs of government.</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
country would change forever. The modern cosmopolitan Australia finally emerged
like a technicolour butterfly from its long dormant chrysalis.</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">And
38 years later we are like John Cleese, Eric Idle and Michael Palin's Jewish
insurgents ranting against the despotic rule of Rome, defiantly demanding
"and what did the Romans ever do for us anyway?"</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Apart
from Medibank and the Trade Practices Act, cutting tariff protections and
no-fault divorce in the Family Law Act, the Australia Council, the Federal
Court, the Order of Australia, federal legal aid, the Racial Discrimination
Act, needs-based schools funding, the recognition of China, the abolition of
conscription, the law reform commission, student financial assistance, the
Heritage Commission, non-discriminatory immigration rules, community health
clinics, Aboriginal land rights, paid maternity leave for public servants,
lowering the minimum voting age to 18 years and fair electoral boundaries and
Senate representation for the territories. </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Apart
from all of this, what did this Roman ever do for us?"</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
...</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"<span style="font-size: 12pt;">I
don't know why someone with this old man's upper middle class background could
carry such a burning conviction that the barriers of class and race of the
Australia of his upbringing and maturation should be torn down and replaced
with the unapologetic principle of equality. </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I
can scarcely point to any white Australian political leader of his vintage and
of generations following of whom it could be said without a shadow of doubt, he
harboured not a bone of racial, ethnic or gender prejudice in his body. </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">This
was more than urbane liberalism disguising human equivocation and private
failings; it was a modernity that was so before its time as to be utterly
anachronistic. </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">For
people like me who had no chance if left to the means of our families we could
not be more indebted to this old man's foresight and moral vision for universal
opportunity. </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Only
those born bereft truly know the power of opportunity. Only those accustomed to
its consolations can deprecate a public life dedicated to its furtherance and
renewal.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">"This old man never wanted opportunity himself but he possessed the
keenest conviction in its importance.</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">For
it behoves the good society through its government to ensure everyone has
chance and opportunity.</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">This
is where the policy convictions of Prime Minister Whitlam were so germane to
the uplift of many millions of Australians."</span></blockquote>
Thank you Mr Pearson.<br />
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Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571732930246537804.post-88399940907951546202014-11-04T20:26:00.002+11:002014-11-04T20:30:07.548+11:00Understanding the Moslem world<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The Brookings Brief email yesterday contained a link to an article providing valuable insight into Moslem perceptions of religion and state, and the appeal of Islamic State, pointing out how much western policy is ill founded, or founded on misperceptions. <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2014/10/31-roots-of-islamic-state-appeal-hamid" target="_blank">The article is here</a>. It points to the necessity of understanding the complex, not to any simple solutions.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 1em;">
ISIS draws on, and draws strength from, ideas that have broad resonance among Muslim-majority populations. They may not agree with ISIS’s interpretation of the caliphate, but the notion of a caliphate—the historical political entity governed by Islamic law and tradition—is a powerful one, even among more secular-minded Muslims. The caliphate, something that hasn’t existed since 1924, is a reminder of how one of the world’s great civilizations endured one of the more precipitous declines in human history. The gap between what Muslims once were and where they now find themselves is at the center of the anger and humiliation that drive political violence in the Middle East. But there is also a sense of loss and longing for an organic legal and political order that succeeded for centuries before its slow but decisive dismantling. Ever since, Muslims, and particularly Arab Muslims, have been struggling to define the contours of an appropriate post-caliphate political model.</blockquote>
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<div class="name" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 1.25; margin-bottom: 3px;">
<a data-loc="loc:sidenav" href="http://www.brookings.edu/experts/hamids" id="content_0_flexiblearea_1_rptAuthors_ctrlAuthor_0_hlAuthorName_0" style="color: #20558a; text-decoration: none;">Shadi Hamid</a></div>
<noindex style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px;"></noindex><br />
<div class="" style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.45; margin: 0px 0px 5px;">
Fellow, <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/about/programs/foreign-policy" style="color: #20558a; text-decoration: none;">Foreign Policy</a>,<a href="http://www.brookings.edu/about/centers/middle-east-policy" style="color: #20558a; text-decoration: none;">Center for Middle East Policy</a>,<a href="http://www.brookings.edu/about/projects/islamic-world" style="color: #20558a; text-decoration: none;">U.S. Relations with the Islamic World</a></div>
<em style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px;">originally posted in <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/10/the-roots-of-the-islamic-states-appeal/382175/?single_page=true" style="color: #20558a; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">The Atlantic</a>.</em><br />
<br />
See also this earlier thoughtful piece in the <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/06/28/the-surprising-appeal-isis/l9YwC0GVPQ3i4eBXt1o0hI/story.html" target="_blank">Boston Globe</a>.</div>
Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571732930246537804.post-30086266296846540782014-10-28T22:26:00.001+11:002014-10-29T08:45:07.061+11:00The psychopathology of right wing leadership <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I wrote earlier in this blog of the <a href="http://strategiesforaustralia.blogspot.com.au/search/label/brain%20evolution" target="_blank">neurology of militaristic and ritualistic behaviour.</a> <i>New Matilda</i> has now carried a piece in comparable vein, based on psychological studies. <a href="https://newmatilda.com/2014/10/26/what-makes-them-tick-inside-mind-abbott-government" target="_blank">Here</a>.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="https://newmatilda.com/2014/10/26/what-makes-them-tick-inside-mind-abbott-government" target="_blank">If the Abbott Government was an individual, he would be a psychopath. And you wonder why they're frightened of science! Clinicial psychologist Dr Lissa Johnson explains.</a></blockquote>
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Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0