Fair enough, Wendy. We all know how annoying those intrusive journalists can be!
A press secretary’s nightmare: former Utah governor Jon Huntsman’s daughters have taken to Twitter to help his campaign in the Republican presidential primaries. They’re having a lot of fun at the expense of their dad’s opponents and getting plenty of media attention along the way.
“When somebody gets on an exploding boat to come over here - they’re willing to do that to get to Australia - you’re missing out on some really good Australians if you don’t let them in.”
- P.J. O’Rourke
Once again, Annabel Crabb makes Australian politics not only interesting but also funny: “Today’s ALP: left and right make for queer bedfellows”
Those of you who are familiar with Australian politics will understand what an extraordinary feat this is.
reblogged from rickwebb
What the Occupy protests are all about (no, I can’t figure it out either)
Let me start with a disclaimer. I consider myself a reasonable, moderately left-leaning kinda guy. I enjoy The West Wing, The Monthly, and the editorial pages of the Sydney Morning Herald.
But I just can’t get on board with the Occupy movement. I started out thinking that the protesters are fringe lunatics who would be better off trying to save the world by getting a haircut and a job. This was confirmed when I spent some time at the Occupy Sydney protest in Martin Place last night.
I’m glad I finally dropped by to check out the protests. I’ve been making fun of them all week, and it’s much easier when you’ve seen them in action.
There is certainly much to make fun of. The terrible clothes, the terrible spelling, the terrible rhetoric, and worst of all, the terrible smell.
That’s right - this is a protest movement that’s best observed from upwind.
There’s also the emerging bureaucracy, which makes the movement seem like it’s being run by HR people who are frantically scribbling on whiteboards and preparing meeting agendas. The protesters are carefully delegating responsibility for various work streams to the relevant subcommittees, working groups and task forces. It’s like a protest organised by the UN.
The protesters fancy themselves as modern day Robespierres. They sing songs from the French resistance, but I’m not sure they realise that the French revolution and the French resistance were 150 years apart. And that the French resistance was resisting an occupying force.
Anyway, instead of coming across as brilliant and articulate French insurrectionists, they end up coming across as less articulate - and even less likeable - versions of Michael Moore.
Much has been made of the protesters’ vague (incoherent?) ideology. There is some truth to this:
This is a bizarre ideological union. Ron Paul doesn’t believe there should be a federal government, and Noam Chomsky doesn’t believe there should be a private sector. My guess is that the protesters haven’t bothered to read the Wikipedia article explaining either man’s political beliefs.
This is the worst thing about the Occupy movement. It seems committed to taking the easy way out - intellectually, practically, and morally. The whole thing is a copout.
There were maybe 150 protesters gathered in Martin Place, sitting around eating lentil burgers, drinking wheat grass juice and making signs. They don’t know what they’re protesting against. They don’t have any consistent ideology, apart from “fuck the man” and mumbles about Wall Street’s greed. And they don’t have the PR savvy to make themselves look thoughtful or intelligent in front of the television cameras.
They can’t even organise a decent protest. I mean, they didn’t even occupy the nice part of Martin Place! And they don’t seem much worse behaved than the goons who usually occupy Sydney’s CBD on a Saturday night.
Idling around the fountains taking Spanish classes is so much easier than doing something that will help to bring about real change - like joining an NGO, running for office, or becoming a journalist.
Or better yet, occupying something useful - like a university degree, a career, or perhaps a shower.
The lucky country’s double standard
Alex Campbell, 9th October 2011
Australians have no trouble getting worked up into a slather of moral outrage. This is never more true than when one of our citizens finds themselves in trouble with the laws of a foreign land.
Last week’s arrest by Indonesian police of a 14-year-old Lake Macquarie boy on drug charges is without doubt a terrible tragedy. Our instinctive and heartfelt sympathy for the boy and his family is just and deserved.
However, the anger and outrage towards Indonesia that this incident has provoked is entirely unjust, hypocritical and frankly absurd.
Let’s think back to June of this year, when our nation could not summon even the slightest outrage when it was revealed that two teenage boys had been locked up for months without charge in a high-security prison.
Most Australians will not have any recollection of this. Why? Because in this case the roles were reversed. It was the Australian government that had imprisoned two Indonesian boys.
THREE boys snatched from an impoverished Indonesian village by people smugglers have been held for months in an Australian jail with paedophiles, rapists and murderers. Instead, the boys aged 15 and 16 face five years’ jail in a high-security adult prison under mandatory sentencing laws.
Fourteen months after 15-year-old Ose Lani and 16-year-olds Ako Lani and John Ndollu were detained on an asylum seeker boat near Ashmore Reef, no Australian police or immigration officials have contacted anybody in Manamolo, the boys’ village on Indonesia’s Roti Island, to establish their ages. No Australian official has informed family members that the boys are being held in an Australian jail.
“Australia Imprisons Indonesian Boys”, Sydney Morning Herald, June 14, 2011
What does it say about our national character that we are perfectly happy for our government to imprison Indonesian children who had not clearly committed any crime, but we become incensed when Indonesia dares to imprison one of our children for knowingly buying drugs in their country?
Given Australia’s gross mistreatment of those who would dare to seek a better life in our country, what moral authority can we really claim over Indonesia on any issue?
Indonesia, and particularly Bali, are always welcoming to Australian tourists. All they ask is that we don’t do drugs in their country. Is that too much to ask? Seriously, what do we expect to happen when we violate their laws?
The outrage expressed in our newspapers this weekend over this matter is completely wasted. The Indonesian government does not fear for what’s being said about them in our papers.
The only thing that might worry the Indonesian government is a decline in their tourism market. Yet despite the disasters that have befallen Schapelle Corby, the Bali Nine and so many others, more and more Australians keep flocking to Bali every year.
If Australians want to protest against this arrest - if Australians really don’t like or want to respect the laws of Indonesia - perhaps they should leave the thongs and singlets back in Newcastle and instead go holiday on the Gold Coast.
While passionate conviction and shrewd pragmatism are characteristics of great political leaders, what really distinguishes them is their detachment - not their proximity to the electorate but their distance from it. The natural posture for a politician has always been ‘chief amongst equals’. But modern media does not allow this. Now it is at best ‘equal among equals’ and commonly last or least among them.
Listen to talkback, watch Q&A, tune in to the internet and ask where the power and respect lies. Who lays the strongest claim to the record, the knowledge and the authority, charismatic or otherwise? Not the leaders. Most of what used to be theirs is shared between the host and the audience, for whom pretty well any opinion is as good as another. The politicians scramble for the residue.
‘The Nation Reviewed’, Don Watson in The Monthly
