Staining the walls of the palace of public discourse



Thursday 23 May 2013

There's No "I" in Team, But There is in Hypocrisy

Over the weekend, I caught up with an old friend and, over a drink at the North Bondi RSL, we got to talking shop.  My friend works for a "global oil and gas major" - as they like to say - but you can hardly notice the horns on the top of his head.  He was bemoaning the lack of science in the "fraccing" debate, particularly here in Australia where the discourse of this topic has been over-ridden by the unholy trinity of fear, uncertainty and doubt.

If you rolled your eyes at the preceding sentence, then this article is just for you.

My friend's complaint was that the science simply does not support many of the allegations employed by the detractors of "fraccing".  His arguments and his evidence-base, I must say, are pretty comprehensive.  Maybe not conclusive (which is perhaps beyond the limitations of science in any event), but certainly worthy of fostering a genuine dialogue on this issue.  Yet, in this country, the fraccing debate is essentially over: for it is far easier to convince people, especially politicians, with fear than it is to do so with rationality.

My friend recounts stories of being assailed by other parents at children's birthday parties with well-parroted lines about his company's role in "killing the planet" (he jokes he might join Phillip Morris next).  To them he replies, "Did you enjoy your hot shower this morning?"  It's a good line that taps into an inconvenient truth that lays at the heart of much "green" rhetoric, where the debate about the environment is often configured as "the people versus the faceless evil corporation from central casting".  Us vs Them.  This was nowhere more evident that when the Gillard Government introduced the Carbon Tax - a tax, we were told, that would be borne by "the big polluters".  Them, the others.  But this distinction between Us and the corporations that serve us is not only arbitrary, it is a myth invented, ironically, to make us feel comfortable and allow us to continue our quest for consumption in unchallenged detachment from the consequences of our demands.  You see, by and large, it is not Them, the corporations, that are the problem, it is Us.

Corporations are not moral, but nor are they necessarily immoral.  They are, in fact, amoral.  This is not only all that we should expect of Them, it is all that is appropriate.  We are rightly critical and suspicious of any commercial organisation that claims moral authority or justification for what it does or what it would like to do (this is part, but only part, of the reason why so many of Us find Gina Rinehart unpalatable).  Corporations do not make moral distinctions, they (in the vast majority of cases) operate within the laws of the day to deliver us what we demand and, in doing so, make money. This "amorality", of course, necessitates the close regulation of commercial enterprise - for the best we can ask of them is to contest their game within the boundaries we set.  These regulations, and the intensity with which we enforce them, turn corporations into a reflection of ourselves.  To look into the face of corporate Australia is to see our own demands and social values staring back at us.  One cannot expect moral leadership from a reflection.  Change can only come from one side of the mirror.

Furthermore, from within the luxuries and comforts of a capitalist economy, we can and should question the laws and regulations under which organisations operate, we can and should question an organisation's ability to deliver to our demands (Ford Falcon anyone? No?), but we cannot question their desire to make money. It is, after all, the "profit motive" that has given to us so much wealth that we can, with straight-face and without hint of irony, demand our ridiculous comforts as god-given rights. O brave new world that has such people in it.

But the ugliness of our comforts, the stinking exhaust of the engines of consumption, is difficult to confront.  So we must externalise the blame for it.  It is not my insistence on living in air conditioned climate between 21 and 21.5 degrees, that causes coal to be burned and CO2 to be emitted into the atmosphere.  No, that's not my fault, that's those "big polluters" again, destroying the planet for their own gain and that of their shareholders - which reminds me, I really must check how my superannuation fund is performing.  No, clearly, the blame lays with those corporations that are not making the changes that I'm not willing to make myself.

But none of this is to suggest that we should return to some kind of agrarian lifestyle or embrace the tenents of national socialism.  Our challenge is not revolution, it is simple self-awareness.  The awareness to accept our responsibilities, because the sense of responsibility begets change in ourselves - those gloriously insignificant changes that flow through democratic governments and market economies to change the world.  The awareness to recognise that we and our corporations live side-by-side, branches entangled, inside our glass house ... [fades to static]

Wednesday 15 May 2013

Games of Silence

When my son was born, I posted the following comment on Facebook:

Introducing Benjamin: intellectual, athlete, artist and leader of men

Who me?

My wife and I are currently expecting our second child (although, I now think I’ve figured out what’s causing the problem) and this morning we were delighted to learn that the next addition to our family will be a girl.  This caused me to reflect on that I had written upon the birth of my son and ask myself: what am I going to say when my daughter arrives?  What are my aspirations for her?  How do I express that one of those aspirations is for her to feel free of stereotypical gender norms?  While on the one hand I do hope she grows up to be caring, sensitive and attuned to the needs of others, I don’t want to suggest that such qualities are essential only to being female.  I want her to be brave, smart and proud in equal share.

The Australian media, however, has no such qualms about reinforcing – even manipulating – gender stereotypes.  Yesterday, Prime Minister Julia Gillard introduced legislation into the parliament to pave the way for the implementation of the National Disability Insurance Scheme or DisabilityCare, as it now to be known (they must have stayed up all night thinking of that name!).  As any feeling person would, when thinking about the human implications of this policy, the Prime Minister became emotional during her speech.  The shock of it reverberated around the country.  For anyone who doubted that “leadership” is still a highly masculinised concept, one only has to look at the political media’s reaction to Gillard speech. So incongruous is emotion to our conception of leadership that Julia’s near-tears became the story itself.  Furthermore, Julia was not only emotional, she was “choking back” tears – as a woman, obviously, she is not control of her emotions, they are control of her. Sue Dunleavy and Jessica Marszalek of The Herald Sun wrote of the PM’s “emotional outburst” as follows, “Ms Gillard's voice wavered and she had difficulty speaking because her feelings were so strong.”  Comments such as these were repeated ad-nauseum, with their common implicit theme of emotion over-riding rationality.  Comments that are almost complementary on the one hand, but, through the very way the incident has been sensationalised, really only serve to reinforce a masculine and clinical model of leadership, and a fragile conception of femininity.

Now, this approach to the reporting of the DisabilityCare bill may be an interesting, albeit somewhat academic, issue in itself, apart from one thing … It wasn’t even the most interesting aspect of the story.  Indeed, the News Ltd media could almost be forgiven for also playing up the “levy hike” angle, because at least that is something that has relevance and impact on people’s lives.  But even that slimy and manipulative angle was not the most surprising element to this story.  No, the one thing that raised my eyebrows as though I’d just stepped on one of Benny’s toys was the fact that the Opposition was almost entirely absent from Parliament for the bill.

Hello?

The Opposition’s absence raises many questions – the kind of questions that the commentariat generally like to get into a froth about.  Does it signal an underlying lack of support for or belief in DisabilityCare?  If so, what will happen when they are inevitably voted into office?  Was it simply crude political expedience to distant themselves from a tax increase, while, hypocritically, publicly supporting the concept?  If so, what will “the voter” make of this two-faced trickery?  Or perhaps most importantly: was the absence a vulgar display of a lack of respect for the disabled community, let alone disrespect for parliament, in that the Opposition were too busy with media engagements and self-promotion to be present for this bill?  The bottom line being that the Opposition’s absence from parliament yesterday provides enormous opportunity for the kind of speculation, hypothesis and “intellectual masturbation” generally loved by political writers around the country.

The silence has been deafening.

But, why?  Why has this angle been let go through to the keeper?  Apparently, a show of warm emotion from a Prime Minister is more spectacular than a display of petulance or arrogance or hypocrisy from an Opposition Leader.  It is perhaps telling to reflect upon which form of behaviour the media, through its selectivity, is condoning here.  One thing is for certain: I shall have to think very hard about the Facebook post for my daughter’s arrival, as what I don’t say might be as important as what I do ... [fades to static]

Friday 3 May 2013

Take Me To Your Leader

Every so often, a nation faces a test of character.  There comes a decision-point that poses a question of values and priorities to our legislators, our business and community leaders and ourselves.  Recently, we saw Republican legislators in the United States fail dismally at such an examination when they voted down a series of moderate and widely-supported gun reforms (as discussed in my previous post, Under The Gun).  Australia is currently facing a test of its own and it is revealing some interesting insights into some our largest businesses.

Earlier this week, the Gillard Government announced a 0.5% increase in the Medicare Levy to help fund the implementation of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).  The need for and the benefits of the Scheme seem almost inarguable.  Either implicitly or explicitly, most of us recognise that the NDIS is a matter of fundamental human rights in that it seeks to re-balance (at least to some extent) the decades of disadvantage heaped upon the already fragile shoulders of disabled people in our community (themes explored in previous posts, A Poverty of Will and The Discretionary People).  Above and beyond the fact that it is simply the right thing to do is the finding from the Productivity Commission that the NDIS also represents a long-term economic benefit to our nation.  You would be hard pressed to find a policy that carries such a beautiful balance of fairness and economics.

The question, of course, has always been about the financial - how do we pay for a NDIS in the short-term? It is a fair question.  That question has now been (partially) answered.  Fascinatingly, beyond some cheap inflammatory commentary in the usual trash media (deliberately designed to bait and provoke), the response has been little more than a shrug of the shoulders from most or, often, rapturous applause with many proudly announcing their willingness to forgo the two coffees a week it would take for their most vulnerable fellow Australians to have a better shot at a fair-go.  Indeed, such has been the prevailing public sympathy for the NDIS that the Opposition, despite some initial sniping, appears to have read the wind and is on the verge of supporting the bill into law before the next election.

Well done, Australia!  Our community and legislators look like passing this test with character and morality in place.  It's enough to restore your faith and pride.

But, as the saying goes, there's always one, isn't there?

In this case the one is two: the CEO of Myer, Bernie Brookes, and the Chair of Wesfarmers, Bob Every,  who have criticised the proposed 0.5% increase on the Medicare Levy because of a potential, unproven, impact on their businesses and, presumably, bonus schemes.  Now, we live in a democracy and it is of course their right to voice an opinion on such matters.  But the comments by Brookes and Every come across as particularly hollow self-interest in the context of the acceptance of the levy increase among so many of those who are the ones who actually have to pay it.  This self-serving hollowness is particularly deep in the case of Wesfarmers, a company which has based its success on putting Australians out of business and out of work (in case you'd like to join the boycott of these companies, Wesfarmers retail interests include Coles, Bunnings, Target, K Mart and Officeworks).

No-one would debate that Australian retailers - big and small - face a number of key challenges.  Perhaps, the very reasons for the inability of our largest retailers to respond to the issues they face are revealed in Brookes' and Every's reaction to the levy increase.  That is, these comments just under-score the rank failure of leadership within our corporate retailers.

Brookes' comments could almost be forgiven as yet another inept action by a CEO who seems incapable of making a good strategic decision.  But, of course, the storm caused by his words just highlights how out of touch Brookes is with his market.  Any shop-owner in any corner store would tell you that it's not good business practice to antagonise your customers.  Myer will weather this tempest, but it will be just more damage to the mast of ship already short a rudder.

Every's comments shed even more light on how it is that such highly paid and, allegedly, intelligent people can be so out of touch.  Every is quoted as saying, "What we need to focus on is what we have to have, not what would be nice to have."    

Sorry, son, that wheelchair is a "nice to have".  We have to return it to Bunnings

These comments can only be described as dickish, particularly coming from the Chair of company that makes its money largely by selling things that are "nice to have".  They are born of a degree of privilege that us ordinary folk can only marvel at.  Herein lays the seeds of failure for our major retailers - it's not in taxes or levies imposed by government but in the segregation between the leaders of these companies and their markets - we, the people.  In my professional life, I have been lucky enough to work with many excellent CEOs and Directors, the best of whom never allow themselves to forget where they came from or that revenue is something to be earned every day and is not an entitlement.  Among our major retailers, forgetting where you came from and forgetting who serves who seems to be part of the job description. Perhaps, instead of pointing the finger of blame at the government who propped up these companies and their executive salaries during the GFC, our retailers and their shareholders need to take a good long hard at who they've put in charge of their ships.  The breathtaking misunderstanding of public sentiment on this issue and the seemingly hard-wired sense of privilege and entitlement with which Brookes and Every speak would suggest that they are ill-equipped for the challenges that face their respective organisations.  One might even say they have disabled their organisations ... [fades to static]

Monday 29 April 2013

The Money Shot

It had to happen.

It started with the campaign to “stop the boats” and the deliberately deceptive and inflammatory labelling of asylum seekers as “illegal arrivals”.

They’ve always been known for perniciousness toward the vulnerable and a willingness to put polls ahead of people.


It continued with a mind-bogglingly stupid NBN policy, aggressively articulated and resolutely defended in the face of reason.

They’ve always been known for irrational short-termist policy that masquerades as the “economically sensible” way forward.


Bit-by-bit, in some kind of revolting striptease, the prospective Abbott Liberal Government have revealed themselves through these examples and more.  Beneath the tassles, the sequins and the plastic boots, we find the withered remains of a traditional conservative ideology – hateful and demented.  Then, over the weekend, the Coalition dropped its final modesty to the floor to show the world a stunning arrogance and born-to-rule mentality.


Attacks on democracy in Australia generally come small – little compromises on principle and practice.  This a land of skirmishes not revolution.  But often those attacks are packaged in a form that sees them embraced, where they should be reviled.  This is a land of practicalities and comforts, not aesthetics.

In this context, the announcement by Liberal justice spokesperson, Michael Keenan, that, if elected, an Abbott Government would direct the Australian Crime Commission (ACC) to cease its investigations into crime and drugs in sport is one of those significant insignificant statements.  On the surface, it may seem a small and isolated issue – indeed, many Australians might agree that the ACC should be focussing on what Keenan calls “serious crime” rather than endangering their precious weekend entertainment and its phoney veil of fairness.  At its core, however, there is a vulgar truth: here we have a political party attempting to halt a criminal investigation.  For let’s be clear here, the ACC report was not just about half-witted athletes injecting themselves with half-baked substances, it was about the involvement of organised crime in sport – from doping to match fixing.  Seemingly the Liberal Party does not consider drug trafficking and fraud “serious crime”.  We always knew that the Liberals were the party for business and unrestrained capitalism, but this might be taking things a little too far!

The reality, of course, is that the Coalition is not really endorsing such behaviours – not explicitly, at least.  This is just another case of callous poll-driven conservative policy: Australians want to believe in the myth that our sportspeople are “clean” and gracious.  Conservative politics is all about preserving myths, so it is perhaps unsurprising that the Abbott-led Opposition would pursue this track and, in doing so, endear the Coalition to the “Aussie battlers” who just want to watch their teams run around on the weekend, with their wilful suspension of disbelief intact.  Or, at least, that no doubt is the theory.

What is surprising and disturbing is that the Coalition would sell out its integrity over such a peripheral issue.  It’s hard to imagine that “drugs in sport” would be an election issue.  Yet, we see a political party greatly over-stepping the mark and compromising the principle that criminal investigations must proceed without political interference, all the for the sake of scoring points in a bogus class war.

Indeed, not only is the Coalition’s position the ACC “Organised Crime and Drugs in Sport” investigation dangerously unprincipled, it may run counter to the ACC Act (2002) which vests the power to “determine national criminal intelligence priorities, provide strategic direction to the ACC and to determine the priorities of the ACC” in the Board of the ACC.  One can imagine that this was a deliberate and appropriate separation of powers put in place by the government of the time (the Howard Liberal Government) to avoid the carcinogenic touch of politics in the activities of our premier national crime-fighting body.

That the Coalition would even think that it could or should influence the actions of the ACC just speaks to an arrogance that knows no moral bounds.  The striptease is complete and the Abbott “alternative” government is laid bare: it cares not for people, it cares not for the future and it cares not for the rules.  Barring a miraculous turn around in the polls, Australia is headed for a government without conscience. A government that, even in opposition, has boldly, and without blushing, announced its intention to chip away at fundamental democratic principles. A government that through the example it sets will surely draw out the worst in its citizens ... [fades to static]

Tuesday 23 April 2013

The Human Trinity

In the past few days, both New Zealand and France have introduced laws allowing marriage equality.  That it is necessary to pass such laws seems remarkable in itself.  Surely, our starting point in all things should be equality – a position that should only be altered where there is genuine justification.  In this light, it is either astonishingly naive or disgraceful disingenuous for Prime Minister Julia Gillard to suggest that she doesn’t want to impose her views on people on this matter, but she will vote against marriage equality on the floor of parliament.  To take away equality is to impose a view.

This brings us to the point of what it is that “justifies” inequality with regards marriage.  The silent spring in this debate is religion.  While many of our political leaders may skirt around the issue, the underlying premise that marriage is a bond between a man and a woman stems from the 2,000 year old writings of Palestinian goat herders.  In a previous post I commented that the protections for religion or any other ideology or way of life should not exceed the protections from them.  So why should religion be granted such primacy in public policy and debate?

Guest commentator, Kosmos Samaras, provides us with his views on religion, its relevance in modern society and the myth that religious spirituality is somehow more compassionate than atheism.

 At least you can get a nice view of the stonings from up here...

Some of my first memories of religion are my mother’s stories of saints and how they kept a watchful eye over us: protectors, god’s servants.

I conjured up images in my mind of giants in the sky, floating up there with their super powers, ready to come to our rescue whenever danger was near. My five year old mind did not struggle to visualize such super beings, given I was already a firm believer that Superman was actually real, that Santa did eat at our kitchen table on Christmas Eve and the devil did sometimes try to hide under my bed.

Looking back, it does seem that the child mind was very easy to please, and accepting of all things supernatural.

I used to think that I had “one over” on the devil under my bed when I went to sleep with a crucifix, firmly clutched in my hand, as I hid under the doona. Little did I know that I was clutching an instrument of death on par with the guillotine. For those of you who don’t get into the habit of studying the tools of executioners; the crucifix was the Romans' favourite method of execution. At times, thousands would be strung up on these morbid constructions, a truly nasty way to go. A very Christian doctor goes into some detail here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC9krDwjfZE

I’m sure the devil under my bed may have been chuckling to itself, as I clutched a symbol that exterminated thousands of human beings over many centuries. Hardly the halo I was looking for, but, then again, a five year old should not know better.

As the years rolled by, and life and its full reality exposed me to more and more of the human experience, these super heroes suddenly were not so super. Sitting at home as a young teenager I was watching a documentary on the Jewish holocaust, from memory it was on SBS.  It was one of those classic mega-documentaries, running over many nights and containing many interviews with survivors relating their nightmarish stories. As I sat there, looking at images of thousands of cadavers being bulldozed into massive pits, I turned to my mother and asked why god/Jesus and his saints allowed this to happen. The explanation was on par with: “god works in mysterious ways”. I’m sure my mother was simply trying to bat away such difficult questions, given her real belief that human beings are responsible for all their own deeds.

But it was my next questions, which remained unanswered that set me on the path to atheism. It went something like this. So who was told that god/Jesus works in mysterious ways? Why do billions of people believe in another god? Why is their god or their beliefs less real, less mysterious than ours? Where is the archaeological evidence that proves our god is more real, more mysterious than my Turkish friends' god?

As a child, the search for rational and logical answers was not needed. After all, I was still looking for the man in moon and the Easter bunny in the bushes, and listening for the big fella on Christmas Eve. That’s ok and, in fact, it’s extremely important that children are allowed to process their new world through the prism of fantasy, fairy tales and mythical worlds. It allows them to over time understand the real world and, for the most part, its ugly nastiness in small steps. Physiologically and psychologically it’s good.

But as the years rolled on, I looked for facts and evidence. My predicament became more entrenched as I slowly acquired a passion for history. That passion for me has now become a door to the true human condition. History does not only teach you about events, places and famous people, but more importantly it reads to you the true story of human beings.

For example, it’s not difficult to work out why ancient people, almost universally, had some form of religious belief. The ancient mind had no real science at its disposal to explain even the simplest elements around them. Even water was explained away as a mystery, cloaked by a god. Neptune, I’m sure, was an easy substitute for the good old molecular heresy of “H2O”.

The world back then was flat and ended somewhere in the vast ocean – where giant monsters lurked, waiting for stray sailors who ventured too close to the edge of the world. The moon was not some planetary object, orbiting and dancing with the earth’s gravitational pull, no it was a god. Thousands of years would pass by before humans would kill off the moon god by landing on it, planting a flag and televising it to the world.

Like the modern child, ancient people had no capacity to use other forms of information to explain away the unknown. Diseases were the work of the devil; famine was met by hunting down those nasty women in the village, otherwise known as witches, and killing them for casting a spell on this year’s crop. Sadly thousands of women met their end at the hands of men wielding a knife in one hand and a bible in the other. We now know that failed crops may have had something to do with drought, lack of soil rotation or infestation.

The modern adult no longer has to hunt down single women in the street to explain away bad tidings. They no longer need to search for the hotline to the church to order an express exorcism for a loved one who obviously is suffering depression. Natural disasters are just that, the workings of nature and not some massive hand of god pushing half a mountain of snow over the lives of thousands of people in South America.

But this is all the beauty of growing up. You go from using the child-like mind to make sense of the world around you to using a progressive method of interpreting life based on logic, reason and science.  Humans have always tried to make sense of the world and today we have far greater tools available to us as a species and as individuals than ever before – tools of logic, reason and science.

As an atheist, however, I tend to not look upon religious adults as ignorant, but rather as people still harbouring their inner child and refusing to let go of the comforting and nurturing embrace of the afterlife and a protector god who, like our mother or father, watches over us, even when we are elderly and in our twilight years. Its equivalent to the complete security most humans would have felt when embraced by their mother as an infant, something most struggle to free themselves from all their lives. Do you remember that embrace? Most do and continue to look for its comfort in the many human constructs that take place in oddly shaped buildings on any given Sunday, Saturday or any other special religious day and even in their daily prayers.  

But if you can bravely leap from such easy comforts, you can look upon this life with eyes wide open to see and adore its glorious complexities, its forms and its sensitivities. Life becomes extremely precious, where it begins and ends. Freedom becomes a virtue, where it nurtures life and improves the human condition for all.  This then becomes the passion of the atheist: the trinity of life, freedom and equality ... [fades to static]

Thursday 18 April 2013

Under The Gun

Like many of us, I’ve spent the past few days horrified and, yet, transfixed by the footage of the Boston bombings. Saddened. Sickened. Absorbed by the tragedy.  And as each day passes and none of the usual suspects claim responsibility, we are drawn inexorably toward the conclusion that this was the act of some lone “home-grown” lunatic or, at least, an isolated coalition of the deranged.  Another product of a society with some sickness at its core that withers humanity and, in its place, allows the weeds of malevolence to grow.  A society that claims to live under grace but, in reality, lives under the gun.  While the United States spends its time prosecuting the case against the violence of other nations and cultures, it has lost sight of the deformities in its own reflection: the cruel affliction of violence twisted in on itself.

America, when will you be angelic?

Consider these statistics on gun violence in the US from the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence:
·         there are around 30,000 deaths each year from gun violence;
·         around 1 in 3 gun deaths are homicides, giving 33 firearm homicides every single day;
·         38% of all gun casualties are children and young adults;
·         gun homicide is the leading cause of death for African American men and women aged 1-44 years;
·         from 1982 to 2012, there were 61 mass murders in the US across 30 states – an average of three per year; and
·         these mass murders are getting worse – the five worst mass murders on record have occurred in the last five years.

In the face of these numbers and their human costs, the US Senate rejected seemingly moderate gun reforms aimed at keeping weapons designed for no other purpose than to kill other human beings out of the hands of those who might seek to apply this purpose.  While the US does have broader cultural issues around guns and violence that it must address, the rejection of these gun reforms by the Senate is a very specific failure of morality.  It is a failure of the morality of conservative politics.  These reforms were voted down by Republicans – seemingly for political expedience and gamesmanship – despite the overwhelming support of the American public. They were voted down on a hollow justification of “individual rights”, by the self-same people who oppose marriage equality and sustain government intervention in the relationship between consenting adults. If, as is reported, some Republican Senators describe this as a victory, it is only a victory for cowardice and hypocrisy over humanity.  A victory for the moral terrorism of machine politics. 

America, when will you be worthy of your best hearts and minds, instead of pandering to the dystopian prayers of your worst?


It is staggering that this violence exists, let alone – for all practical purposes – it being government sanctioned, in a comparatively wealthy and sophisticated society.  This is not happening in some anarchic, war-torn, poor and emergent republic.  This is happening in the so-called “great republic”.  This is happening in a nation that continues to dictate morality to the world.  It begs the question: why do we listen?  How does the US maintain any influence and authority on the world stage? How does a nation so riddled through with hypocrisy and eaten away by inequality find the strength to stand on that stage and carry the audience away in a wilful suspension of disbelief?  Of course, the answer is obvious: they’ve got the guns.  Violence and fear are America’s damnation and its salvation.  Violence and fear destroy the soul of the nation, but also sustain its glistening, star-spangled facade.  The choice has been made.  America’s future is now slung in the holster upon its hip ... [fades to static]

Thursday 11 April 2013

Maggie's Farm

So many column inches in so many places have been written about Margaret Thatcher over the past week that it feels almost redundant to add further to the topic.  Like so many, I have my own experiences of Thatcher’s Britain and the desiccated and broken lives blown out the exhaust pipes of its engines.  But these stories add little more to what we’ve heard and read already, other than to further confirm the bitter legacy of power untempered with humanity.  Besides, it would be tough to top comedian Russell Brand’s remarkable piece that appeared in The Guardian: I Always Felt Sorry for her Children.
Rather, at the end of the week that was, perhaps the more interesting question is to now ask what is to be made of the reactions to Thatcher’s death?  To consider the haze made visible by the moonlight, as Conrad might put it.
It would be tempting to conclude that time has caught up with, overtaken and now looks back in disdain at Margaret Thatcher and her legacy.  Certainly, much of the discourse around her death has focussed on the viciousness of her reign and the moral vacuum in which she encased it.  It is easy to become drawn in by the drama, emotion and humanism of this narrative.  But it is not the full picture.
When I was a kid – an oddly politically-conscious lad living in Melbourne’s outer fringe – my understanding of Thatcher’s Britain arrived to me via popular culture: The Young Ones and the other heroes of the alternative comedy movement, The Clash and The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole.  Then, in the late 80s, my family moved to England for a year.  Nestled away in the Cotswolds, I can remember being amazed at discovering that a lot of people actually liked Maggie.  How could that be?  How could so many people be so wrong?  Surely, there was only one way to feel about such a tyrannical figure?
 
God, you’d think Devil Woman had never been written!
Even now, this division exists.  For every person rejoicing that the wicked witch is dead, another bemoans the loss of an admired leader.  This is not just a British phenomenon either.  In Australia, we see the hard-faced, hard-haired daughter of Maggie, Julie Bishop, chastising Foreign Minister Bob Carr for daring to challenge the unreality of Thatcher’s noble image by relating a story that underscored her innate racism and the lens of conflict through which she viewed the world.  But Bishop is not alone in seeking to protect the mythology of Thatcher.
Here in lies the paradox: that the reaction to Maggie’s death reveals that Maggie isn’t dead.  The world has not moved on beyond the grasp of Thatcherism and a conservative politics of rampant individualism, of reprisal rather than fairness, of brutish authority rather than stewardship, of division and dollars and the building of economies rather than nations.  We hear the echoes of Thatcher’s voice in those who speak about deploying drones to help “stop the boats”.  We see the flicker of Thatcher’s merciless swinging cane in the cuts to TAFE funding in Victoria.  We feel the chill of Thatcher’s shadow when we hear PM-in-waiting Tony Abbott talk about “Australia Inc.” and “adaptable workplaces”.
No, Thatcher’s passing does not signify anything.  It is just another twist in the writhing evolution of conservative politics, where the skin is shed but the beast remains the same.  To review and debate Thatcher’s legacy as though it were an artefact and unconnected to the conservative politics of today and, equally, to celebrate her passing as some kind of final karmic justice is to focus on the tail of the beast rather than its head.  And that just seems a good way to get bit ... [fades to static]

Wednesday 3 April 2013

It's Not You, It's Me

Easter is a time rich in mythology.  This is perhaps why the Fairfax media chose to run this fairytale by chief political correspondent, Mark Kennedy, over the weekend: Simply Put, Gillard is Indestructible. In it, Kennedy argues that Labor’s best shot at the next Federal Election is to play up Prime Minister Gillard’s “toughness” ... seemingly because, well, it works in America.  He humbly writes:

“Strength in leadership is not a preoccupation unique to the great republic, however ... if Labor strategists are not thinking about strength and toughness right now, they should be.”

It’s a remarkable piece in that it masquerades as analysis when in fact it’s based on two myths shakier than a toddler yipped up on an Easter Egg chocolate rush.

The first myth is that Gillard is actually a “tough” leader at all.  On this issue, I won’t comment further here as it has already been beautifully dissected and debunked by Michael Koziol, writing for The Spectator, in his piece: How Does Julia Sleep?  Koziol writes:

‘Tough’ might be an appropriate descriptor of Gillard the political operator, but it would be the wrong one to characterise her leadership. A tough leader, I believe, would not have capitulated to Tony Abbott and forced Kevin Rudd to dump the Emissions Trading Scheme. A tough leader would not have surrendered to the big miners and renegotiated the mining tax into insignificance, breaking the budget in the process. A tough leader would prosecute the case for Labor’s compassionate stance on asylum seekers, rather than racing the Coalition to the bottom of the scrapheap. A tough leader would stand up to the unions instead of abiding loyally on every question, from 457 visas to gay marriage.”

The second myth at the heart of Kennedy’s fantasy is that “toughness” exists as some kind of universal virtue for a political leader.  That it is part of the fanciful (and engendered) “great leader” archetype and a panacea to other failings.  The reality is that there is no default quality or style for a political leader.  What matters is not the characteristics of the leader per se, but how their qualities, style or persona speak to the electorate at a particular time and place.  It is how these qualities make us feel about ourselves – our attitudes, our futures, our pasts and our place in the world – that really matters.  Our political leaders forget at their peril that it isn’t who they want to be, but what we want and need from them that determines their success.
 
“Toughness” plays out in the United States as a consistently valued characteristic in its leaders because much of American culture is based in an entrenched narrative of persecution.  From the Pilgrims to today, it has been the US vs The World – a nation that grew up fast in a nursery of conflict and paranoia.  This is why intelligent people in the US will talk, straight-faced, about the right to bear arms.  This why US foreign policy at its core is little more than “to re-make the rest of the world in our image”, through fair means and foul.  This is why the US leads the way in UFO sightings and conspiracy nuts.  In this environment, “toughness” in a leader brings comfort – it says, “Read my lips, your fears are validated but you are protected”.

Take me to your leader.

Australian culture does not exist on an entrenched narrative of persecution or, indeed, on any such singular theme.  We are a nation too immature, too multi-faceted and too lucky to be defined consistently over time by a single narrative.  Ours is an evolving cultural story that changes and grows like a developing child.  At any given time, one narrative may dominate the mainstream, but our history shows that such a narrative will be transitory.  We have been characterised at different times by narratives of dependency and, equally, of defiance, of generosity and, too often, of fear.

More recently, our culture was perhaps best seen through a prevailing narrative of guilt.  We achieved a level of sophistication as a nation to allow self-reflection.  We recognised that we were very much the lucky country and our luck had been built on exploitation.  Depending on our world views, this recognition was internalised or felt to be (unfairly) thrust upon us.

Former PM, John Howard, read this narrative and exploited it to his great success.  He was no inspiring or charismatic leader, nonetheless he made us feel better about ourselves: we felt better about being self-centred, better about being “a little bit” racist, better about prizing material gains and better about being unrepentant for our past.  Howard placed his hand upon our furrowed brows and absolved us – this was his genius and his crime, and both were greatly rewarded.

Through this lens, it can be argued that Gillard’s great failing has simply been a failure to understand what the electorate needs from its leader now ... a blindness to the prevailing cultural narrative and the corresponding relief she needs to provide.  Hence, we see this churning identity, as she casts about in the dark trying on personas ... but nothing connects.

This, in part, may be due the sense that the prevailing narrative is shifting again.  Guilt is giving way to gratification and even fear.  But we are in the process of change.  There is flux.  At this precise moment, we are a nation of uncertainty.  Thus, what the electorate wants in its leader is stability – not survivability and crisis.  On that score, Gillard is mortally wounded and playing the “indestructible” card would just bring attention to the instability that enshrouds her leadership – both in a political and identity sense.  More importantly though, it again puts the focus on the wrong place: Julia’s story, rather than ours.  Sorry, Julia, we’re voting for us, not for you ... [fades to static]

Tuesday 26 March 2013

Distant Voices

Nobody smiles much on the 6.55am tram.  Drawn faces and tired eyes stare out the windows at the darkness as we limp through the northern suburbs of Melbourne.  Outside, cars streams by bumper-to-bumper. Close, but still moving for now.  The world is a busy place at this hour.  Stop-by-stop, the tram fills uncomfortably.  Office managers, apprentices, retail workers, hospital staff, receptionists, the occasional suit, you and me.  All of us joined in our lonely migration and the weird silence that hangs all around us.  When we get caught at traffic lights, up and down the tram there are anxious glances at watches .  Mental calculations, consequences and responses.  We’d be on the train if they weren’t so few and far between.  Meanwhile, my phone goes off in my pocket.  My wife has sent through a photo of my young son. I didn’t get to see him again this morning as he was still asleep when I left.  Seeing his little face makes my chest feel tight.  I wonder what sacrifices my fellow passengers also make to be here on this tram every morning and I’m sure there are many who give away a lot more than me.  The unrequited nobility of work-a-day people.

We are the people who were forgotten in last week’s hollow leadership tantrum within the Gillard government.  We were forgotten by too many of our federal Labor parliamentarians in their ambition-induced amnesia, cocooned in their own mythology.  Forgotten by the virginal young turks in Ministerial offices as they spun the bottle and trembled in breathless anticipation.  Forgotten by the over-heated ideologues in the media as they clutched their loaded pens and bemoaned the lack of a money shot.

So when Labor Senator David Feeney fronts the ABC’s 7.30 program to speak on behalf of the government after the day’s pointless furies and says that now Labor can get back to its “core business” of defeating the Liberals in the polls, it is confirmed that the federal parliamentary Labor Party has become more consumed with power than with people.  So when Julia Gillard fires another cynical accusation of misogyny at Tony Abbott and then cuts support to single mothers and families with newborns, while posing for photos with vile woman-hater Kyle Sandilands, it is confirmed that this is a government obsessed with means rather than ends.  When we see our representatives more focussed on their own protection rather than ours, it is confirmed that this is government that has lost its way and drifted far from the people and values it purports to stand for.  Indeed, the idea of its re-election may now be the only thing that would crack open a smile on the 6.55am tram.

But governments never really pay their failures.  Ultimately, the joke is on us.  And this one is a joke in two parts, with a bitter punchline that will be played out with the (now certain) election of a rampant and emboldened Abbott government. A punchline set up by the failure of this Gillard government.  There is always tragedy at the heart of comedy ... [fades to static]

Sunday 17 March 2013

Blind Panic

Somewhere between being an attentive father and husband, amateur political blogger and obsessed cyclist, I find time to ply my trade as a consultant.  Through my day job, I’ve become acutely aware that, other than optometrists and soothsayers, there are only two types of people in the world who actually draw meaning from the term “vision”: being consultants and political bloggers.  While I might think that makes me a “visionary”, it actually means I’m just a strategy-geek and the rest of the world goes a little glassy-eyed every time I take to the whiteboard.  Quite rightly too. 

“Vision”, unfortunately, is a vague and nebulous concept that can hide all manner of sins. It’s unfortunate because, in a number of my recent posts, I’ve been guilty of referring to the need for governments to articulate an engaging vision for our country.  Now, for those of you playing “bullshit bingo”, you’ll note the triple word play in the preceding sentence (articulate, engaging and vision), plus the double word score for getting them in alphabetical order.  While, for those of you still reading at this point, first of all, hang in there because there’s some cool images to come and, secondly, something of a defence of the case for vision... 

Despite its limitations and connotations (or perhaps because of them), “vision” is the right word when talking about something as complex and uncertain as the future of a country.  After all, what we’re talking about is defining an overarching direction or potential image of our society with lots and lots of wiggle room.  Regardless of this ephemeral quality, “visions” are important, even essential, to the extent that they force us to think about the kind of nation we want, the kind of nation we can actually be and the challenges and barriers we face to get there.  In that sense, vision is not a “thing” or a statement or a description, rather it is a process that causes us to think about the future in a serious way.  Because the future is conjecture and assumption, and is more unpredictable than we’d like to admit, the real power of vision is most evident not in its articulation, but in its absence.  That is, it is evident in the failure to think about, describe and plan for a desired future.  It is evident in the failure of vision.

Australia suffers from a failure of vision in many areas – health, energy and education are well-worn discussion topics.  Another particularly interesting, and strangely invisible area, is our failure of economic vision.  It is interesting because we don’t have to look far back into western political history to find dramatic examples of the effects of such failures that are eerily similar, at least on the surface, to what we have here in Australia.  Examples that under-score the power of vision in its absence – where successive governments failed to prepare a nation for the future in the face of impending and unavoidable change on a massive scale.  Examples that show how a failure of vision turned the opportunity for national advancement into social conflict and turned the chance for evolution into extinction.

At present, our economy is driven by and addicted to an unprecedented resources boom.  Such is our dependency on this boom that no-one seems willing to ask the question: what happens after the rush?  Thinking beyond the boom seems to be outside the scope of our vision. It seems we are doing little to prepare ourselves for an Australia that is not riding on the back of the coal train or the iron-ore ship.  We have seen this blindness before.  While the specifics of the situations may have their differences, the similarity lays in the failure of governments to articulate and drive a long-term agenda to avoid an impending crunch point.  In this case, a crunch point where an entire industry becomes “uneconomic” – as will surely happen in large parts of our mining and resources industry in time (if it isn’t happening already).  Thus, in the following images, we may see a glimpse of our future.  Our vision if we can’t get vision right ... [fades to static]











Wednesday 13 March 2013

Mandate This

Last weekend, I had a revelation.  Somewhat worryingly, it happened between the ending of an episode of The Family Guy and before the start of Doomsday Preppers.  I’m not sure whether that says more about the world at large or just my viewing habits, but it’s probably a cause for concern either way.  In any case, the revelation was that ice hockey may be the greatest sport in the world.  After watching just a couple of minutes of the Blackhawks versus Avalanches game, I was hooked. I’d love to tell you that it was the speed and skill that lured me in.  Yes, they were all part of the appeal, but let’s be honest: it’s all about the violence.

Australian politics is a lot like a game of ice hockey.  It can be brutal, it can seem chaotic and, while the objective is simply to win the game, the audience is really just hanging on the next bone crunching body-check ... and if that check takes someone out of the game, all the better.  We pump our firsts and bay for more.

Question Time in the NHL

Now, I don’t subscribe to the theory of a long-gone “golden age” of politics, when an informed and considered populace voted for well-intentioned candidates on matters of substance.  Politics has always been about conflict, it has always been personal and it has rarely, if ever, been about altruism.  Even in the “good ole days” – you know the ones before we gave the vote to women, poor people and those dark skinned chaps.  While the nature of public discourse may have changed since democracy became more, well, democratic, the fact is that more people are engaged, at some level, by the political game than ever before.  Today’s political consumers might only connect with politics at what some might deem to be a superficial level (having been encouraged by those leading public discourse to connect in such a superficial way), but they are demanding creatures nonetheless. The political consumer is a creature that has been trained by marketers, the media and even governments to expect that its expectations will be fulfilled, now.  It is an animal that does not submit to rule.

This represents a major challenge to any politician or party that still believes that winning an election actually provides a “mandate”.  Like much of the symbolism of parliament, the notion of mandate is now little more than a cute antiquity.  Today, politics exists within a frame of permission to govern, rather than mandate.  Permission is a dynamic concept, ever changing over time.  The concepts, policies and people it is attached to can reverse, resolve and reconfigure in days.  Permission is temporary and requires constant tending.  In the age of immediacy, the lumbering years-long mandate has simply been out evolved.  Winning an election no longer represents the successful achievement of a political objective.  It is the beginning, the entry ticket, to a contest with the electorate to sustain permission.

This fickle-nature of permission is not necessarily a bad thing.  It does not in itself necessitate, as some might suggest, poll-driven politics.  Rather, it requires governments to demonstrate genuine leadership.  That is, a government cannot only concern itself with the development and implementation of policy, but, quite rightly, it must also bring people with it.  It must inspire and motivate voters to come on and stay on the journey.  A different kind of communication from government is required.  It starts with the selling of a vision or, at least, a single galvanising narrative.  Governments that don’t clearly stand for something relevant, meaningful and easily articulated cannot sustain our permission, because no-one can be inspired to follow no direction when what we want is to be part of a story we believe in.  People will even make sacrifices for the right story.  But a story is an organic process – it feeds off its audience and the second it stops being told, the instant it stops evolving and moving forward, or in the moment in contradicts itself, it dies. 

Much of the criticism of Victoria’s now former Premier, Ted Baillieu, was around his failure to sell the government’s message.  Baillieu was betrayed not by his party, but by his faith is a mandate.  He wrongly believed he could quietly play a long-game – working away in the background with little engagement of the community in his agenda.  Some may say this is noble, others might point an intrinsic arrogance. The result was the same: in the face of mounting issues – economic, social and political – the unconvinced community simply took away from Big Ted its permission to govern.  The Victorian Liberal Party recognised this and had to act, in the hope that while permission had clearly been detached from Big Ted that maybe it was still applied to the party.  Only time will tell whether they were too late or not, but the signs aren’t good...

Permission must be continually earned and re-earned, and is done so through good leadership.  The principles that define successful leadership is other aspects of life apply.  From the “dry” features of planning and the ability to make good decisions, to the human elements of communication, consistency in narrative, behaviour and people, and compassion – recognising that at the centre of it all are not “agendas”, but people.  When it comes to maintaining the trust and belief of people, politicians are now only just realising what sports people – whether they be hockey players, footballers or cricketers – have known all along: you’re only as good as your last game ... [fades to static]