Darkness at Noon

So I’ve finally got around to reading the Latest Quarterly Essay by Clive Hamilton What’s Left? The Death of Social Democracy.

It’s an interesting and challenging read I must say. I certainly don’t agree with all of it but all his points are worthy for consideration. As an interesting aside he seems to share my thoughts on Latham: that he had a better grasp on the current political situation than most – it is just a pity he is so self destructive.

Anyway, Hamilton argues that essentially the goals of Social Democracy have more or less been met and that as a result its concerns are no longer relevant. As we are now more affluent than we have ever been before a new set of concerns that are not class based are not the major issue for most Australians.

Instead people are driven by their desire for belonging and class can no longer fill this void but corporations have done a fine job at it:

Over the last two or three decades, the agents of the marketing society have seized on the primal desire for authentic identity in order to sell more gym shoes, cars, mobile phones, and home furnishings. And what has happened at the level of the individual is echoed in society’s preoccupation with economic growth, an autistic behavioural pattern reinforced daily by the platitudes of the commentators and the politicians.

His solution to this is, more or less, downshifting. Now downshifting is a very Hamilton response, and more over it is a very middle class response – if only we were all in a position to do it but unfortunately at any one time, as Hamilton admits, up to 20% of the population are living below the poverty line.

I also find it very interesting that Hamilton points to identity and rightly calls for liberation, not just equality. It’s a point worth keeping in mind when we thing about the advances of the last 30 years or so.

The other thing that struck me is that, in the west, I have argued that the Global Justice Movement emerged out of the brand based politics which was a rebellion against the branding of identity. So when Nike to us that you need to wear their shoes to be the person we are. This lead to a backlash and meant that the GJM uncovered Nike’s horrible human rights and labour standards abuses. Hence the GJM was born in the global north (and with the signing of NAFTA in the global south I’d argue).

The other thing that Hamilton overlooks is global justice. The Global Justice Movement turned to Nike and said, “don’t sell me my identity” but then added “and stop your human rights abuse in Economic Processing Zones.” Hamilton’s response stops at “don’t sell me my identity”.

Any modern day protest movement needs to acknowledge that it is in a globalised world and the “ripples in the pond” extend a lot further than your own identity.

As I seem to say repeatedly, the global justice movement is at the forefront of activism and we need a lot more of it in Australia.

Just a quick note to say that this blog was started a year ago today.

No great need for fanfare but it is nice to see it still going and getting a growing amount of traffic.

Last Friday (26th) was National Sorry day. Unfortunately Sorry Day tends to pass unnoticed these days. I think the movement is over trying to get the PM to say that magic word – it’s best to put your energies elsewhere at this stage.

However I thought I’d draw your attention to a list put together by the National Indigenous Times of Dissenting Indigenous Voices.

The list can be found here.

There was a great piece in the Age about the changes to political donations law yesterday and it would seem that the only winners are the political parities themselves:

Securing corporate support is a competitive business. Business figures tell of receiving phone calls from political operatives demanding to know why they have yet to contribute or why they have been so supportive of their rivals.

“You’ve got to be seen to be there. We do it because everyone else does … we know it gets us access,” said one prominent industry group leader when asked about his attendance at political fundraisers.

The other issue regarding political expenditure which gets less attention is that we should be capping the amount that can be spent on advertising. In many senses it doesn’t matter how much you donate to a political party if you cap their expenditure and therefore, hopefully to some extent, their influence over the electorate:

The Federal Government is preparing to blitz airwaves and letterboxes with taxpayer-funded advertising campaigns worth at least $150 million over four years, with much of the cash scheduled to be spent ahead of next year’s election.

A Senate estimates committee has heard details of spending for a plethora of information campaigns, including advertising to promote private health insurance changes, child support changes and the Government’s proposed smartcard.

Over at LP they have a guest post from kalkadoon.org. It is worth a read, if for no other reason than that it is really challenging.

There are a million different things I want to say about this post as it touches on a few areas of study for me. However I’ll keep it to two things.

The first thing I want to say, it that very broadly I agree with kalkadoon.org. However, it is noteworthy, I think that it is a position I have reached without referring back to indigenous cultures. I think the argument gets really interesting when you relate it back to non-indigenous people’s relationship with the land.

Secondly, I’d just like to make the small point that kalkadoon.org talks about “the Green movement”. This is a movement that I consider myself part of and one thing that it is important to note is that there is a huge diversity of opinion within the green movement from anthropocentric to ecocentric and individualist to collectivist position. The position I take and the position that is taken here (from what I can tell) tends to transcend these divisions and there are plenty of others in the Green movement that take the same position. Unfortunately not enough of them do though. My point being that you are always on dangerous ground when you are talking about something as diverse as the green movement – it is just as diverse as opinions amongst indigenous people.

I’ve been watching the government of Evo Morales in Bolivia, and of course Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, with great interest. In many senses it is a great bastion of hope for the left – certainly they have both created a hot bed for radical left-wing politics.

They are of course also being demonised by many commentators and leaders in the west.

In ACDJ’s forum last Tuesday the point was made that whilst truth is always a slippery thing and objectivity is never possible there are better truths than others. This is one of those issues that I struggle to find the better truth in.

In this context I draw your attention to Monbiot’s latest piece.

CCH (subscription needed) reports:

Australians will legally be able to record TV and radio programs and transfer material from CDs to mp3 players, under proposed copyright changes. Attorney-General Philip Ruddock says the plans will make laws fairer for consumers and tougher on copyright pirates.

I haven’t had a good chance to read through it all but it seems as though it is a step in the right direction – although copyright law in Australia still has a long way to go.

As usual Kim Weatherall has a considerably more detailed analysis.

Financially speaking, one of the best things I’ve done of late was replacing my motorbike with a push bike. Whilst it wasn’t my choice (the motorbike was stolen), I found what a few local councils around Melbourne have found:

Cr Fristacky said she rides between 16 and 40 kilometres a day, seven days a week, and estimated she saves ratepayers $10,000 a year in fuel and car maintenance costs.

It would appear that Suki has already written the post I was going to write.

I suppose it saved me some time…

Just a couple of non-budget related bits for you. Firstly, the head of the Smartcard project has resigned:

The man overseeing the introduction of the Government’s smartcard has resigned, citing concerns about its implementation, including privacy.

James Kelaher, former head of the smartcard taskforce, yesterday warned that privacy and the confidence of those with a stake in the card – including the public, doctors, pharmacies, states and federal departments – were likely to be compromised by Human Services Minister Joe Hockey’s proposed arrangements.

Secondly, Greg Craven raises some significant concerns about the current high court challenge to the federal industrial relations laws:

The reason for this is simple, if not widely understood. The point of the present case is not really control of industrial relations, which merely is a convenient (and important) field of battle. Rather, at the heart of the dispute lies the Commonwealth’s trading corporations power. This is being deployed by the Howard Government as the sledgehammer with which to break the lock of the constitution that has for so long denied Canberra untrammelled power.

The potential of the corporation power here lies in the fact that Australia is a heavily corporatised society: corporations do everything from produce our newspapers to mind our children. If the Commonwealth can control everything about them, it can control most aspects of our lives.

And he concludes with:

Ironically, perhaps the greatest long-term casualty of this debate will be Australian liberalism, the political philosophy that has heroically upheld the idea of the division of power – and the federalism based on it – in the face of repeated assaults by Labor and its allies.

After this, no liberal will be able to refer to such concepts without provoking laughter.