I wasn’t going to touch this issue but it’s time to get angry and active. The defining issue of New South Wales politics in our time is that of public versus private ownership of infrastructure. Secondary to that is the issue of business lobbying of, and influence over, NSW Parliamentarians.
In the past decade or so we have seen the ALP government sell off assets, refuse to invest in desperately needed infrastructure and enter into agreements for privately-funded infrastructure and public-private partnerships (PPPs). As the population grows this has led to a reduction of crucial services for the people and infrastructure, and taxpayer money being diverted to big business. Prominent amongst these failures is the following. The refusal to expand heavy rail to the burgeoning outer suburbs of Sydney. The degradation of the hospital system. The transfer of taxpayers’ money to big business from misplaced PPPs or privately owned infrastructure like the Cross City Tunnel, the Airport Link, the Lane Cove Tunnel etc. The slowly dying public school system.
Big business owns the NSW ALP. Most MPs are effectively employees of big business.
The final straw is the attempt to privatise electricity. Michael Costa and Morris Iemma look like leaving politics once this final act of corporate welfare is completed. Like Bob Carr they will probably get jobs with the businesses who benefited from their acts of theft. They may very well have deals lined up already. How else can you explain their tenacity on this issue in the face of ferocious public and party opposition?
Such a crucial asset as the electricity system needs to in the hands of the people, even more so given the fact that global warming and the carbon emissions trading scheme are imminent.
I plan to vote Green first then preference Liberals over Labor at the next election unless my local MP not only crosses the floor but becomes instrumental in removing Iemma and Costa from their positions of power. That is how angry I am. I would rather wipe the parliamentary ALP out and wait four years for democratic renewal than allow them to continue destroying Sydney and NSW in general. My local MP is Carmel Tebbutt. She’d better leave her kid at home, take control of things and take the reigns from Iemma, Costa, Joe Tripodi, Eddie Obeid and Reba Meagher. The NSW ALP could fracture permanently if sanity doesn’t prevail. This has federal implications too.
Everyone should threaten their local ALP MP with electoral annihilation. Both use the shock a pollie website and find your local MP and send them an email. If they don’t do the right thing then vote Green or Liberal. Teach these people a lesson that democracy will prevail.
28 August 2008
22 August 2008
Rage: Germaine Greer vs Noel Pearson, Marcia Langton, Hannah McGlade and Miranda Devine
Some sense has to be instilled into the frenzied controversy over Germaine Greer’s essay on Indigenous rage. Here is a defence of Greer’s arguments.
Noel Pearson is oblivious to the fact that he agrees with Greer when he says “It's not rage that's killing these communities, it is the sense of resignation that nothing can change”. The sense of resignation is a salient element of the “rage” Greer describes. His endorsement of John Howard’s Indigenous Intervention is due to the fact that it centralises power over average Indigenous Australians in the hands of members of the Aboriginal meritocracy such as himself. Pearson condescends to average Aborigines. He is not one of them. His statement “I want Aboriginal men to take more responsibility” is patronising and evinces his inner feelings of superiority to other Aboriginal men. It is also in the same vein as people who think society can be elevated to higher levels of civility through individuals in isolation spontaneously deciding to improve their own behaviour. This is a rightist myth and will never happen. Hannah McGlade is also guilty of propagating this myth. Society can only elevate itself through collective action, but not the kind of collective action that disempowers Aboriginal people and unilaterally takes their land away from them.
Greer was mistaken in singling out Aboriginal men. The rage extends to Aboriginal women and children. I see it almost every day when I walk through Redfern. However objections to Greer’s essay that she offers no hope misses the point. Hope can come after the extant rage has been expressed. This is where Greer leaves off. Her essay is a plea for the warranted rage not to be ignored and suppressed. What’s done has been done and can’t be forgotten. Hannah McGlade either doesn’t understand this or wants the rage to be quashed and conveniently forgotten. Things aren’t so easy. It’s slightly redeeming that the article in The Australian which claims that “Aboriginal elders” disagree with Greer (without citing a single elder’s opinion - Pearson etc aren’t elders, they’re part of the meritocracy) acknowledges that elders agree with Greer that treaties are vital.
When Marcia Langton says that Greer’s assertion that rage is a result of the destruction rained on Indigenous societies in the past 220 years is “circular” she descends into an embarrassing nonsense. Where is the circularity? Melbourne University should be ashamed to have someone of such intellectual stuntedness in their employ. Langton doesn’t muster a single valid argument against Greer, let alone one that could condemn Greer as “racist”. Langton should understand that the background of Greer’s argument concerning the forced conversion of Aboriginal society into (mutilated) nuclear families is one that she has employed in the past in her critique of Western society. Cellular, isolated nuclear families are destructive in general. Langton should do some more reading herself rather than exhort Greer - her intellectual superior - to do so.
There is as much point in engaging with Miranda Devine on an intellectual level as there is with engaging in such with a five year old. She is the Sydney Morning Herald’s token right-wing columnist. The SMH undermines conservative discourse by not employing a conservative of more intellect. Her “critique” of Greer’s essay consists solely of personal slights and a quote from Langton. Devine attacks Greer for being out of control of her moods and having issues of abandonment with her father. She also, in a low, unforgivable passage that SMH editors should not have published, implies that Greer is paedophilic.
Germaine Greer is a contrarian, she does delight in it, but this doesn’t detract from the incisive force of her logic. People of less understanding than Greer should be careful when attacking her.
Noel Pearson is oblivious to the fact that he agrees with Greer when he says “It's not rage that's killing these communities, it is the sense of resignation that nothing can change”. The sense of resignation is a salient element of the “rage” Greer describes. His endorsement of John Howard’s Indigenous Intervention is due to the fact that it centralises power over average Indigenous Australians in the hands of members of the Aboriginal meritocracy such as himself. Pearson condescends to average Aborigines. He is not one of them. His statement “I want Aboriginal men to take more responsibility” is patronising and evinces his inner feelings of superiority to other Aboriginal men. It is also in the same vein as people who think society can be elevated to higher levels of civility through individuals in isolation spontaneously deciding to improve their own behaviour. This is a rightist myth and will never happen. Hannah McGlade is also guilty of propagating this myth. Society can only elevate itself through collective action, but not the kind of collective action that disempowers Aboriginal people and unilaterally takes their land away from them.
Greer was mistaken in singling out Aboriginal men. The rage extends to Aboriginal women and children. I see it almost every day when I walk through Redfern. However objections to Greer’s essay that she offers no hope misses the point. Hope can come after the extant rage has been expressed. This is where Greer leaves off. Her essay is a plea for the warranted rage not to be ignored and suppressed. What’s done has been done and can’t be forgotten. Hannah McGlade either doesn’t understand this or wants the rage to be quashed and conveniently forgotten. Things aren’t so easy. It’s slightly redeeming that the article in The Australian which claims that “Aboriginal elders” disagree with Greer (without citing a single elder’s opinion - Pearson etc aren’t elders, they’re part of the meritocracy) acknowledges that elders agree with Greer that treaties are vital.
When Marcia Langton says that Greer’s assertion that rage is a result of the destruction rained on Indigenous societies in the past 220 years is “circular” she descends into an embarrassing nonsense. Where is the circularity? Melbourne University should be ashamed to have someone of such intellectual stuntedness in their employ. Langton doesn’t muster a single valid argument against Greer, let alone one that could condemn Greer as “racist”. Langton should understand that the background of Greer’s argument concerning the forced conversion of Aboriginal society into (mutilated) nuclear families is one that she has employed in the past in her critique of Western society. Cellular, isolated nuclear families are destructive in general. Langton should do some more reading herself rather than exhort Greer - her intellectual superior - to do so.
There is as much point in engaging with Miranda Devine on an intellectual level as there is with engaging in such with a five year old. She is the Sydney Morning Herald’s token right-wing columnist. The SMH undermines conservative discourse by not employing a conservative of more intellect. Her “critique” of Greer’s essay consists solely of personal slights and a quote from Langton. Devine attacks Greer for being out of control of her moods and having issues of abandonment with her father. She also, in a low, unforgivable passage that SMH editors should not have published, implies that Greer is paedophilic.
Germaine Greer is a contrarian, she does delight in it, but this doesn’t detract from the incisive force of her logic. People of less understanding than Greer should be careful when attacking her.
12 August 2008
Reasons Not To Commit Suicide
For people with unremitting pain, whether it be physical, mental or a combination thereof, and who are atheist, it is an irrational act to continue living. For pained atheists with reasonable expectations that the pain will be ameliorated it is rational to continue living, and a judgment call for them to make. For pained people whose joy in life is greater than their pain it’s rational to keep living. For pained people who enjoy pain it’s rational to keep living. Finally there is by definition no meta-reason why people should act rationally.
The following is a list of reasons, in order of my reckoned prevalence in humankind, why people in general don’t commit suicide. They include the non-atheist.
1. Joy in life.
2. Resilience to, or inhibited perception of, pain.
3. Concern for loved ones.
4. Beliefs about the afterlife involving hell, karma, grand plans/designs of the Universe etc.
5. Fear of pain involved in death.
6. Inertia.
(NB - this isn’t a cry for help or anything!)
The following is a list of reasons, in order of my reckoned prevalence in humankind, why people in general don’t commit suicide. They include the non-atheist.
1. Joy in life.
2. Resilience to, or inhibited perception of, pain.
3. Concern for loved ones.
4. Beliefs about the afterlife involving hell, karma, grand plans/designs of the Universe etc.
5. Fear of pain involved in death.
6. Inertia.
(NB - this isn’t a cry for help or anything!)
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