Do you know who I am?

I don´t know about you, but I am blessed with 20/20 hindsight. I can always see what could have been done better, after the fact of course.

However, just so there can be no doubt, let me put a few personal views out there.

1) Global Warming is a crock (I´ll let you decide what of) - maybe the earth is warming, maybe it isn´t, but I am extremely sceptical that atmospheric carbon dioxide (or if you prefer - carbon pollution) is the problem

2) Iraq was the right war to fight, we were justified in doing so and the only difference is that Australia should have done more. We should also be doing a lot more in Afghanistan.

3) The response to the global financial crisis, especially in the US and Australia, is stupid and irresponsible. We are rewarding people who fucked up by letting them continue to do the things they did before, giving them lots of government money and creating lots of debt for my and younger generations to pay off.

4) Kevin Rudd is a terrible Prime Minister, right up there with Gough and Malcom Fraser. Let me clarify. A TERRIBLE Prime Minister.

5) Obama is no great shakes as President, in fact he might even be a terrible President. He´s certainly no where near as good as George Bush (for all his failings). Trying to recreate a European welfare state in the US, after such a policy has obviously failed miserably and continues to fail in Europe seems to me to be nothing short of ideologically blinded stupidity.

And, if you´re still reading, here´s a link to a fantastic article in the Australian today, explaining in much clearer terms than I can manage why huge deficits and overspending are the wrong responses to the current financial problems.

cheers

Harry

Do what I say, don´t do what I do...

What is bipartisanship?  I would have imagined that if someone was talking about trying to take a ¨bipartisan¨approach to politics, it would involve the different sides putting forward their opinions and coming up with some kind of consensus solution, an outcome that isn´t the first choice but is accepted by all.

Apparently that´s just crazy talk Dr Harry!

How about this little gem from Yahoo News.  It has a segment on some of Obama´s campaign promises and then looks at how well he has succeeded.  The intro is this:

CANDIDATE OBAMA ON BIPARTISANSHIP – “I don’t want to pit Red America against Blue America. I want to be President of the United States of America.”

And the assessment on how well he went is this:

PRESIDENT OBAMA ON BIPARTISANSHIP – He has made gestures to his Republican colleagues on Capitol Hill and has invited them into his administration. But turning politics into a less divisive, less partisan affair has proved difficult. Only three Republicans voted for Obama’s stimulus legislation in February.

Now I might be wrong here, but from memory the stimulus bill was some 1000 pages long and members of the two houses were given less than a day to read it?  So the fact that any Republicans at all voted for the bill is a wonder, not a mystery.

Yahoo are shamelessly attacking the Republicans and cheering for Obama over his efforts to be bipartisan, but the basic truth is that Obama has negotiated nothing at all.  He has asked for his programs to be supported but he hasn´t asked for input or held negotiations so that the other side can put forward their point of view.

With a Pauline Hanson voice..... ¨Shame Yahoo, shame on you!¨ (and Barry for that matter).

cheers

Harry

Here´s something a bit more interesting to look at!

I am the grinch...

It's kind of funny. There's all this fanfare and intense interest in the inauguration of the new US President. Millions go along to participate. All those interviewed gush about how historic and wonderful and amazing it is.

And me? I am profoundly underwhelmed. In fact that is almost rating my interest too highly. I feel ambivalence, even apathy.

Yes, Obama talks purty, he gives a good speech and he's articulate. But he has done nothing in his life on which we can judge him. Therefore for me, all this hullabaloo means less than nothing, because it recognises nothing.

Once he has achieved something and I hope that he does, than I'll be happy to recognise his achievements.

For all those who gush about how unbelievable this is, I just don't see it. 12 and 8 years ago Colin Powell was a serious consideration for President and chose not to run for personal reasons. For me, the election of Barak Obama is not change, but simply recognition of change that has already occurred (I've stolen that from someone, I'm not sure who).

I think it would be much more impressive (and vastly more unlikely) for France, or Sweden or Germany to elect a President of colour. All of those countries have signicant populations of immigrants but that never seems to come up when people fawn over how wonderful the EU is.

Anyway, I'm going back to being hopeful but underwhelmed.

Harry out

Obamaaaaaa!!!!!!!!

I was going to talk about Obama in relation to some other post (which has slipped away from me now) but I found this post on a discussion forum about Obama's victory and the ramifications it has for politics in the US, in particular his mobilisation of direct support as opposed to support from the Democratic Party.

The other thing, that they didn't mention, is that a lot of Obama's money may have been dirty. There's very simple procedures in place when recieving internet payments to ensure that identity is correctly verified. Obama instead went with a system of "Oh, if a find a problem later down the line we'll return the contribution", which is all well and good but extremely unlikely to happen.

Anyway, a lot of the consequences for US politics may happen here in Australia as well, although we're a Prime Ministerial rather than Presidential system (and I don't need crap about the constitution thankyou, I mean that Australia has evolved to a system where the Prime Minister controls the power on the basis of control of the legislature). KRudd certainly attracted a great deal of support in the last election but I wonder how much of that was just anti-Howard? His ridiculously high poll numbers would suggest that people actually do like him for some reason though.

Anyway, here's a link to the discussion post I was talking about.

Interesting stuff.

Harry

Labor, Kevin, George and Obama

While watching Insiders on ABC this morning (the BEST show on politics in Australia and one of the best of TV full stop) Lindsay Tanner made a very interesting statement.

He was being interviewed regarding our man Kevin and his experiences in Washington. I'll give you the background first and then get back to Lindsay.

A little while ago, the editor of the Australian (the best paper in Australia) was having a dinner with Kevin Rudd and some other people. The Australian later published an article regarding a Kevin Rudd phone discussion with George W Bush. The most important part of the piece was this: apparently while talking about the global financial crisis Bush asked Rudd "what's the G20?" The article then went onto explain how Rudd was shocked at how stupid George W was. The big problem is this; George isn't an idiot and he was publically talking about the G20 only days before.

So somehow, details of a private phone conversation found their way into a newspaper article that made Kevin look really good and George look really stupid. Of course, the Whitehouse quickly denied this and ever since Kevin has been obfuscating, denying that George ever said a thing, while (very importantly) refusing to deny that the basis of the article was given to the Australian by him. The Australian have been keeping mum about this whole situation, because they know perfectly well where the blame lies, but aren't going to reveal their sources and they continue to back their article, saying that is was based upon impeccable sources (in this case, the Prime Minister of Australia!).

So anyway, after being ignored by most media outlets in Australia for a while, this has finally come to the forefront after Rudd was given the most perfunctory of hand shakes by George while in Washington for the G20. So the rest of the media has finally woken up and Labor is finally being asked.

Now, Lindsay Tanner was being interviewed on Insiders and asked about the article and he made the usual denials, saying that Kevin had denied everything already. Then, he suggested that a far greater gaffe was Julie Bishop, in Parliament, refusing to criticise John Howard for his assertion several years ago that if Barack Obama were elected than he would be the preferred President for Al Qaeda. He then suggested that this was a far greater insult in dealing with the United States.

But the problem is that Al Qaeda have already come out and said that the election of Barack is a good thing!

And of course, John Howard didn't make the point about Obama just because he thought all these radicals hiding in caves hated George Bush. He made the point because Obama at the time was advocating disengagement in Iraq, more importantly he was advocating running away from a conflict that had already been won (ongoing problems notwithstanding). Such following on of the US tradition of running away from everywhere with a hint of casualties for the last 25 years (think Lebanon and Somalia) such an disengagement would have given an enormous boost to Al Qaeda and their associates and once again portray the United States as nation unable to stay the course or follow through with it's own actions.

Say what you will about George (and lots of people say lots of not very nice things) he has turned around the perception of the US, particularly within the Middle East. It wouldn't take much to turn things around again, but right now, if George says he's going to do something, you know it's going to happen and you won't scare him away.

Obama has been very reticent about Iraq recently (because he knows that it's won) and the issue barely featured in the recent campaign, so we'll have to see what he chooses to do. Apparently, the cost of being in Iraq currently is very similar to the cost of stationing troops overseas anywhere else, as combat has dipped so dramatically!

So, if he drops the bundle and does something that encourage the groups who feed on US weaknesses, than it will turn out that John Howard was right. And just because Barack Obama is now the President of the United States still doesn't mean that John Howard was wrong. Of course it might be cause for some uncomfortable moments, but in the end Howard put forward opinion and he hasn't been proven wrong.

Sorry if this post was a bit convoluted!

Harry

Obamania

Check out this link

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/hope-floats-in-watery-ring-of-democracy/2008/11/11/1226318649667.html

At this moment I wish that I was teaching in a mainstream school with an upper secondary English class so that we could analyse this piece in class. Then, after we've analysed it, I'd do comparisons to some other works by other journalists written over the last few months.

Don't know what I'm talking about? Read the article, but it's a theme I may return to, because my big issue with the election of Barack Obama is not Barack Obama (not that I'm particularly enamoured of the big fella') but the free pass that was given him by media from all over the world. Why does some guy who asks a legitimate question (aka Joe the Plumber) get excoriated by the mob, while the Big O just sails on by, blithely mouthing platitudes. Why does an English paper manage to scoop every single paper in the US (Obama's Aunty living as an illegal after being given a deportation notice) on their own turf? Why does Sarah Palin get criticized for having the courage of her convictions (giving birth to a handicapped child when she opposes abortion) but Barack can present himself as a low taxing, religion supporting, war monger after having the most left wing voting record in the senate?

Like I said, all power to Obama for being elected. He speaks well, he gives lots of people the warm and fuzzies, and lets face it after George Bush people are sick of having a consensus seeking moderate such as John McCain and would probably rather someone out to one side of the political spectrum.

But he should be the President after being thoroughly checked out by the media in their role as independent arbiter, not their role as horny groupy, going back stage to lose their virginity (or in this case their ethics) to the big shot celebrity with the smile and the smooth talking (can we whore ourselves out while pretending to still be independent and impartial? YES WE CAN!)

What they should be worried about is this. Is he really going to respect them in the morning?