Temporary Farewell

For purposes of convenience, isolating music from politics and current affairs/travel and a better name I’ve moved this blog. New home can be found here at Wild Colonial.

024: Let’s Play The Blame Game (Yeezy reupholstered my political discourse)

Two days ago, there was an assassination attempt on an American Congresswoman in Arizona, in which six – including a young girl – were killed and fourteen, including Congresswoman Giffords (D-AZ) were severely injured.

Various politicians and media figures have begged that this tragic event not be politicised. Fair enough.

Sarah Palin released a map with various districts and their representatives – including Giffords – targeted with gun sights.

But we shouldn’t politicise these deaths.

Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle from neighboring Nevada recommended “Second Amendment remedies” to political problems.

But we shouldn’t politicise these deaths.

Minnesota representative Michele Bachmann, from – you guessed it – the Republican party – advised voters to be “armed and dangerous”.

But we shouldn’t politicise these deaths.

Before firearm regulations were changed under President Bush, the type of weapon the killer used to cause such a scale of death and injury would have been illegal.

But we shouldn’t politicise these deaths.

In a halfway sensible country, the idea of any easily concealable weapon in a public space would be abhorrent, and some have suggested as such, even proposing that this event serve as a Port Arthur-style catalyst for more reasonable firearms control.

But we shouldn’t politicise these deaths.

There was a serious attempt on the life of a politician.

But we shouldn’t politicise these deaths.

023: The Missing Coordinates

So you know where I’m going now. What about this, that or the other? Why aren’t I going there?

Greece
Like I said yesterday, I’d like to go to the country historians know as Hellas and its current inhabitants call Ellada. But everywhere I’m going is near at least somewhere else I’m going. I’m flying both into and out of Turkey, so that doesn’t really count. The nearest other place on the schedule is Croatia, at least three countries away (gotta love them Balkans) and I don’t even know if I’ll be going to tie-land yet. Not to mention the fact that adopting the Euro completely stuffed Greece as a tourist destination, meaning Western Europeans started hitting North Africa and the Middle East instead. Which meant that a lot of historical and scenic tourist operations were shut down or run on reduced hours, which initiated a cycle… and that’s only a little of what the Euro’s done to Greece and the Greek economy. So, paying off Greece.

Norway
I’m a backpacker. Norway, according to most reliable measures, is the most expensive country on earth. You do the maths. So despite being an inspirational example of postmodern social progressivism and Nordic socialism (the latter done so effectively that if oil prices and government policy continue their current trends the whole country could afford to take a holiday – maybe to the Caribbean or somewhere nice like that, they must get sick of all the rain and snow) and, of course, the home of Trve Norsk Black Metal, I’ll probably be giving Norge a miss.

Russia
More culture, history and wodka than I could possibly take in, true. But it’s a bit more of a hassle than surrounding areas, there’s no easy way of getting to the interesting bits from anywhere else I’m heading, I’ve got to miss out on some things to avoid giving each country like, a week, and the police… yeah, let’s just leave it at that.

Nova Scotia
I’d like to, but there’s basically no international flights into there (and I’m not going to backtrack from Quebec) and once again, I can only fit so much into a year.

Nevada
Dude, screw Las Vegas. You know what Vegas is? It’s America’s juvenile, exceptionalist self-image given life in the form of a giant capitalist playground. Also I am poor. Also gambling is bloody stupid and should only exist in the form of a game of 500 or poker between friends over a few beers or something like that death to pokies Andrew Wilkie akbar

Florida
See above but replace “gambling” with “pointless touristy bullshit that I could do in Queensland if I was that way inclined and had the maturity of a teen-ager”

Georgia
Partly for the insane local music scenes (Athens indie and psych-pop, Georgia sludge, Dirty Souf hip-hop), partly because the only parts of the South I’m visiting are on the perhiphery and I reckon this would be about as “real south” as I could reasonably handle – I’d probably off myself if I was stuck in, say, Mississippi. But that’s the kicker – it’s nowhere near anywhere else I could stand to go, let alone want to be, so I’m giving the state of both Jimmy Carter and Andre 3000 a miss.

The Midwest
If you want to see the real America in one place, wrote Don Watson, whose American Journeys is one of the main guides for the three months I’m spending in the country, go to Chicago. He may be right – it certainly sounds convincing enough, and Watson is rarely wrong – but I’m missing it. Fact of the matter is that no matter how interesting the area is – the closest thing to a “real America” one can find in a “nation state” of at least a half dozen nations, the glorious metropolis of Chicago, the post-dream ghost city that Detroit is turning into, the Nordic immigrant-influenced Twin Cities at the heart of the North Star Republic and LF’s favourite state, Minnesota, the small towns and minutiae of history of Illinois immortalised by Sufjan Stevens in his brilliant Illinoise record – I’ve only got so much time and I’m not really going anywhere near it (are you seeing a pattern here?), except Ontario and I’d much rather avoid hassle by only crossing the US border once.

Vermont
The once (and future?) Green Mountain Republic which supplies the US Congress with easily its greatest currently serving Senator? Guy Rundle suggested in Down To The Crossroads that when the United States begins to break up as all empires inevitably must, Vermont will be the first to go. When it does, presumably under the leadership of Chairman Bernie Sanders with the support of the Sandernistas – the reborn Green Mountain Boys – I shall surely move there. It’s also just about the only state I trust with the interpretation of the Second Amendment, having the curious dichotomy of being a state of ultra-liberal gun nuts (appropriately, it also has a Republican governor, one more progressive than most Democrats). But just visiting it would do it an injustice and I’d barely pick up any of the culture that makes it the coolest state in the US.

Egypt
Much like with Greece, I feel like I’m being a poor excuse for a history nerd by paying off the Black Land. But once again, it’s not really near anywhere else I’m visiting, plus most of the cool stuff got plundered by British and French colonialists so I can see it in museums in those countries. Plus, culturally, it doesn’t really fit at all with the overarching theme of this trip, fitting in better with what I have very, very tentatively planned for the future. Which brings me to…

The Rest Of The World
The Four Tigers, of which I consider one the greatest city I’ve ever visited (Singapore)? The gulf states, where Arab culture meets stunning modernity? The paradise of nerds worldwide, ~*glorious Nippon*~? The wild card continent of colonial past and socialist future, Latin America? The home of the coolest empire in history, Mongolia (sorry all others)? And of course the great cultural melting pot and world power of the future, India?

Time will tell. Who knows what I’ll get up to in a few years’ time.

022: Around The World (repeat ad infinitum)

So, where am I going next year then? Leaving aside the distinction between a “nation” and a “state” – one which I will find much entertainment in addressing in future posts and in those nations – the countries I’ll be visiting are as follows, presented in a handy cartographical format:

Dark green is for definitely visiting. Light green is for “maybe if I’m in the area and there’s something cool on and a cheap train or something”. Slovenija is likely because there’s a cool and not unreasonably priced summer music festival happening there, Metalcamp (and I’ve been advised to check out Croatia while I’m in the area because it’s cool and really cheap, for Europe). Greece is highly unlikely – in fact, ruling out a stupid cheap flight from somewhere, it won’t happen) because I’m flying out of Turkey and it’s the only place around that area but it’s still so tempting because the history and the riots and oh god the food Ellada nomz unnnggggg.

Then, in North America, it’s going to look a little like this:

yes i know i accidentally left off Quebec south of the St Lawrence river dwi

Which, way I see it, will give me a good spread of the culture and history – imperial, cultural and musical – of Canada and the United States in the space of three provinces and a dozen states. I’ll be seeing much more than this though – for starters, I’m going to take a cross-continental three-day-and-night Greyhound across Canada, so I’ll get to see heaps of the countryside, including the Great Lakes and the Rockies.

021: The Roughest of Rough Plans

A major part of the reason I started this new blog was to have a better, more professional alternative to my old livejournal which was further burdened by having three-year-old entries from when I was even more of an insufferable bastard than I am now. The main reason, however, was to have something to use for a travelogue.

As some of you might know, next year – about a month from now – I’m leaving to travel the western world for a year. The plan is – after brief stopovers in Turkey and Switzerland – to live and work in England for three months, spend four months over summer traveling around Europe, and then over to Canada for a month and the US for about three, coming home a bit under a year after I left. Over the next month, I’ll talk about my plans – such as they are, I’m deliberately keeping most of this wide open, and so far (it will change once festival tickets are released) there’s no schedule or dates whatsoever between January 29 when I fly into London and September 20 when I fly out of Zurich (to Montreal – most of my flights have been booked as a package deal through Swiss). And being me of course, this travelogue won’t just be the usual “here was a pretty castle i visited also wooooo i got wasted with other backpackers here are dumb drunk photos” (though I can’t promise there won’t be any of that) – instead, each place I visit will see articles here about the culture, the history, the political issues and climate and the musical scene. Which will provide no end of interesting, thought provoking ideas, and fun times.

020: Democracy’s Postmortem

In case you’ve missed out on the past couple days of news, we’ve finally got a decision. Finally. Finally. Looking back at the election, it still looks like a whole lot of nothing, but I think calling it the “least important election ever only really makes sense from a perspective of who was going to be running the country – a number of things came out of this election, many of them good.

First and most obviously, there’s been the independents. There were four this year, and there’d been three – the same three who changed from a “little voting bloc taken for granted by the coalition” to “the centre of attention for the whole country for two and a half weeks” – for the last couple of election cycles. Don’t count on there only being a brick’s worth in future. Voters who’ve spent the last few weeks complaining that the fate of the nation is being decided by people elected in just four of Australia’s 150 House of Representatives seats (in the case that they didn’t forget about Wilkie, which is surprisingly common) will, so long as they’re not entirely stupid or motivated by sour grapes, probably realise that if they had an independent in their seat instead of putting their faith in one of the majors, then – wait for it – their local issues might be a national priority too. I’ll be surprised and disappointed if we don’t have at least a half-dozen independents when the next election rolls around, probably in late 2011/early 2012 (my personal bet is on March 2012).

The point at which I realised things were pretty real with regards to the three rural independents (despite the prominence of Katter’s hat, “The Three Amigos” was always a dumb name – whatever happened to calling political trios cool things like “The Triumvirate”?) was an exchange between Stephen Smith and Nick Minchin on the ABC’s coverage. Minchin told Antony Green that the Coalition could effectively assume the support of the rural triumvirate due to them being ex-Nationals. Smith responded with “Ah yes, but there’s a reason they’re ex-Nationals, Nick.” Indeed this election has called into question the entire purpose of the National party – the party claims that it exists to provide a voice for rural Australia, but let’s not kid ourselves – a National party member is what you call a Liberal party member who lives in a rural area. Three (four if you count Crook) independent members have achieved more solid promises for action – not to mention a national spotlight – for rural Australia in the space of a couple of weeks than the National party has in the decades since it stopped being an actual voice for rural Australia and became a rump of the Liberal party. As for the individuals, Oakeshott’s a solid politician if a bit of a dreamer, and Windsor is a very switched-on sort of bloke – the kind of guy any rural electorate would be happy to have representing them. But the man christened The Mad Katter by the Australian twitterati is an absolute wild card. Marieke Hardy referred to him as the Kanye West of Australian politics, and, awkward an analogy as that might be, I’ve heard much worse. He’s the sort of crazy that’s so damned crazy that when he says something which makes sense, you start thinking you’re crazy. His rambling “calm down grandad” appearance on Monday’s QandA was the perfect summary of this – he’ll rant with a broken voice for five minutes about a carbon tax before essentially outing himself as an old-school agrarian socialist, telling Nick “a two-party system is the best democratic model” Minchin that the free market should eat a bag of dicks and referencing Alexis De Tocqueville, making half the people watching it do a double take. Honestly, there’s little method to his madness and less point in trying to figure out what his siding with the Coalition means.

Wilkie, on the other hand – well, it’s no secret that I’m something of a fan of Wilkie. Very smart guy, solid politician and exactly what the country needs – he’s an ex-Liberal and and ex-Green, and seems to have taken the best parts of both those parties’ platforms and mixed them with his own personal priorities (gambling, protection for whistleblowers) and local concerns which stem from a safe Labor region where no pork barreling takes place (the Hobart hospital). When people began suggesting that making Denison marginal would get the south of Tasmania some federal attention – particularly as good bloke and retiring Labor member Duncan Kerr was being replaced by the far less appealing option of Jonothan Jackson, who took the seat for granted during the campaign – I didn’t expect that they’d take the best of all available options in making it marginal. His discussion with the two parties should be taken as a textbook example of good independent negotiation: when it was confirmed that he’d taken the seat, he sent an over-the top self-described ‘wish’-list to the two major parties, discussed what they’d each consider and gave his response in a matter of days, rather than foolishly declaring for one straight away (Bandt) or dicking about for far longer than necessary (the rural triumvirate). His attitude to the pork offered was also both intriguing and impressive: Wilkie turned down the Coalition’s uncosted $1billion throw-money-at-the-problem-to-make-it-go-away response in favour of Labor’s more measured several $100 million installments over a number of years to a number of struggling hospitals nationwide, including the Hobart hospital. He was also the only member to remain truly independent, the other three operating as a group and being expected to vote as a bloc for most of the post-election period. Liberals in Denison who gave him their second preference (the only other available options being the Greens, the Socialist Alliance and born-to-rule Jackson for Labor), assuming him to be the lesser of four ‘evils’, are of course having a tremendous cry about it, saying that they’ll preference him last next time around. I’m not sure what they’re hoping to achieve there – if they were going to preference the candidate closest in ideology to them, they should have cut out the middle man and preferenced Labor in the first place.

Given Labor’s NBN – an ambitious, long-term project which was entirely uncharacteristic of Ruddist Labor and was never intended as a vote winner, except, it turns out, for the two which mattered – and the fact that whoever held power would need to negotiate with a Green-controlled senate from next year, something Abbott is utterly incapable of, Labor was the obvious choice for the independents to support – especially with the Coalition themselves promoting the “stability” line. There’s been a particular irony to the use by some politicians’ – Eric Abetz in particular – use of the two-party preferred vote as a mandate to govern, considering that if they’d been using it twelve years ago, the man who’s still the party’s spiritual leader, John Howard, would have been a one-term wonder. News Limited and Fairfax have of course been completely stymied by the result and can’t go a day without calling for another election to deliver a ‘real’ result. Apart from being impossible to go back to the polls straight away, as Antony “read my blog so you don’t make yourself look like a deadshit every time you open your mouth about our electoral system” Green points out here, it’s testament to the pathetic state of political journalism not just in the Hun and Torygraph but all over the Australian media – if it can’t be commentated like a game of footy, it would appear, it can’t be commentated properly by the journalists of Australia.

019: An Opportunity Nobody Will Take

Contrary to what most commentators have been saying, Australia spoke on Saturday, and it spoke very clearly indeed: neither major party deserved to win, and neither did. Instead, we’ve got a hung parliament, and this is something I am very excited about indeed. Most of my excitement is probably misplaced, but I still see this as a massive opportunity.

I’ve long been a fan of what has been referred to by some as the “Scandinavian Model”* of parliament, due to its prominent use in the Nordic countries (something of a misleading name, as it’s simply a way of working within the democratic framework already common across the Western world rather than a different system). This system was described by Professor Carsten Daugbjerg of Denmark’s Aarhus University in an excellent presentation on multi-party and minority governance back in March as Tasmania was heading toward the same situation the nation at large has found itself in as “consensus democracy”. Denmark currently has eight parties represented in its lower house, from conservative and Christian parties to greens, social democrats and indeed outright socialists (this is Scandinavia, after all).

The key to this model is combination of fluid coalitions and the gathering of support from across the political spectrum as necessary to achieve the passing of legislation. Contrary to Australia, the United States and now it would also appear the United Kingdom, the priority for parties in places like Denmark is not to gain power but to enact their policies. In Australia the assumption is that a party can only enact their policies by gaining control of parliament. In a Scandinavian-style parliament, however, the party or coalition in power – inevitably a minority government – will work with one or more of the parties who are not in power in order to gain a majority and put a policy in place. This naturally increases the power of parties closer to the centre politically, as they have the ideological freedom to work with (to take an imaginary example) social democrats, labourites and socialists on the improvement of welfare, and later conservatives, Christians and nationalists on immigration restriction – all without suffering any kind of ideological split of the sort which can potentially destroy a party (or at least its electability). Not only this, but once again in stark contrast to the situation in Australia or the United States where parliamentary deadlocks can frequently occur due to obstructionist opposition parties, the system encourages opposition parties to work with the party in power because it will increase their legitimacy and electability – a party which refuses to work constructively with the party or coalition in power will achieve none of its aims despite having the opportunity to do so. This also discourages parties acting on any extreme of the political spectrum, as extremist policies will not gain any support from centrists or moderates.

With a parliamentary model this efficient and this good at delivering solid results which reflect the diversity of the nation’s population far better than a two-party or simple coalition majority ever could, it is little wonder that the states which employ a Scandinavian-style consensus democracy or variation thereon are also the countries almost universally considered to have the best representation, highest standard of living and equality in the world. It’s a shame, then, that it’s incredibly unlikely that Australia will move toward such a system, even when presented with an opportunity such as this.

(My bet? The independents will make the same mistake as the Lib Dems did in the UK and sign on to one of the major parties – probably Labor – and then stay supporting the party even when it’s delivering no advantages to their supporters because we’re only really used to solid coalitions and “stable government” is such a buzzword. It’ll probably seriously negatively affect their electability next election, too).

*_{It’s worth noting that Belgium and the Netherlands practice a sort of Scandinavia-lite system with less parties and more solid coalitions, which would probably be an easier stepping stone for Australia to reach in the short term, but there’s nothing wrong with hoping for the best possible outcome.}

018: Leftovers and Half-empty Longnecks

I missed the early part of the election coverage because I was working until 9 today. When I went for a dinner break, I happened to end up eating across the road from the office of my local Labor member, Julie Collins. With all respect to her – she’s done good work for the electorate despite it being a safe Labor seat, and is a member with actual community presence (in direct contrast to the Liberals’ Jane Howlett, who nobody in the electorate had ever seen before this election) – I noted that the lights were on in her offices, probably to give the impression of working late into the night on an important day. Which would have worked well if the blinds weren’t wide open, revealing that all the rooms were empty.

And so I said unto the Lord, “O God, please deliver to me an election day metaphor.”

And yea verily, he gave me a politician’s office, in which the lights were on, but nobody was home.

017: Advance Australia Khmer

Poland, 1981

“This is impossible.”

“What, dealing with all of these strikes and protests?”

“Riots even! The people are demanding democracy, that they should be able to choose between the glorious Communist Workers’ Party and some capitalist running dogs of the West!”

“We know the people can’t be trusted to make that decisi- wait! I’ve got it!”

“What is it, Comrade?”

“We’ll give them exactly what they want! A democracy, with two parties – the Communist party, and the Workers’ Party.”

“I’m not following.”

“They’ll think they’ve got the democracy they want, with plenty of choice. The Communist Party will stand for a strong relationship with the Soviet Union, the rights of the worker, and strong national defence. The Workers’ Party will stand for the rights of the proletariat, the securing of our borders, and our position in the Eastern Bloc.”

“I think you’ve gone a bit heavy on the wodka, comrade – that’s exactly the same thing.”

“That’s the beauty of it!”

“You do not give the Polish people enough credit. Two parties, with nigh-identical platforms? Nobody will be fooled. Nobody will think they are in a truly democratic system.”

“Ah, perhaps you’re right. We’ll have to sort these riots out the old fashioned way then.”

Author’s note: please do not think that I am implying that Australia is as bad as an Eastern Bloc country during the Cold War, that the mediocrity of this election is due to our politicians being in on a massive conspiracy (they’re not that smart), or that our pollies are communists (they’re not that smart either).

http://www.ielect.com.au/?p=730

016: Double Disillusion (A Tragic’s Tragedy)

ennui, n.
A feeling of utter weariness and discontent resulting from satiety or lack of interest; boredom.

Those who know me would know that I am what is referred to in certain circles (that is to say, mainstream society, or most of the voting public) as a political nerd, or even a political tragic. Even those who don’t really know me would probably come to a similar conclusion – the very existence of my personal blog and my writing for iElect is probably testament to this. So like every political tragic in this country, I got excited when the election was called. And like every political tragic in this country, I’ve been driven near mad by how unexciting, unimportant, uninspiring, un, un-everything this election is.

Ennui is a word which could have been invented, Shakespeare-esque, for the very purpose of describing this election. The level of discourse, from the voting public, the media and the politicians themselves is utterly maddening. Previous elections have suffered from one or even two of these symptoms, but never all at once and never all at this level. To hear young people saying that they “don’t really care about politics” in a country with compulsory voting is frustrating – but these days I can completely sympathise with the people saying this.

In his understated appearance – he was easily and sadly the quitest of the five panelists – on QandA a few weeks ago, Waleed Aly (in my opinion one of Australia’s finest political analysts) said that this was the least important election in decades, if not Australia’s history. And initially I reacted against that statement. But the more I thought about it the truer it got. And with each passing day it’s become more and more true. Aly was talking in that instance about the fact that the government’s policy positions had, to an unprecedented degree been not only influenced but dictated by the opposition’s (a trend solidly established during Gillard’s first two weeks in office), but that was only the tip of the iceberg. Every week has been another bite into the most rotten political apple imaginable. A debate so pathetic, processed and dry that even politicians from the two major parties were joking about how terrible it was by that Monday’s QandA. A second “debate” involving “dialogue” with “undecided” voters at the Rooty Hill RSL which – well, the inverted commas probably tell the whole story there. A legitmate question on the the Coalition’s internet program – “What is a megabit?” – which was laughed off, something which was ignored by all but Australia’s internet community, the biggest group of which (the self-proclaimed “internet libertarians” of Whirlpool) are single-issue voters opposing Labor on the filter alone. An obsession with the media on how terrible the media have been at creating discussion of how terrible the media have behehelelloalalahahahahahharrrgghghh it’s all too much.

Stop the presses! The two-party-preferred poll numbers switched to 52-48 for a day, and now they’re back to 51-49! What does that mean? Absolutely nothing, but that won’t stop the national media from putting it on their front pages in lieu of actual discussion for yet another day (with a piece on what Gillard’s recent prediliction for pinstripe suits means for Australia’s future on page 6 – page 4 if it’s a Murdoch).

Just end it now, please. Let it all end.

http://www.ielect.com.au/?p=672