Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Liberal Party Suicide

Tony Abbot, the ‘mad monk’, ‘Captain Catholic’, the man who during the last elections verbally attacked asbestos cancer campaigner while he lay on his death bed, is to replace Malcolm Turnbull as leader of Liberal Party. His one vote coup managed on the back of a double sided fear, the fear of what any ETS scheme would do to business (this despite having negotiated all the amendments they had demanded) and secondly of making K-Rudd look good in Copenhagen.

Interestingly the vote was brought about on the grounds that Turnbull was ignoring the party’s voice. The party voted last Monday by 8 votes to pass the ETS and vote with the government. So who exactly was ignoring the voice of the party? What was clear however was that the Liberal Party today is a fractured, dysfunctional party. It is being held hostage by the ideological right; the same group that was decimated in the last election. A group that is so sure that it is right, it ignores public opinion and prior commitments in order to prevail.

A vote against the ETS in the senate will allow K-Rudd to call for a double dissolution in early 2010. The Liberals can try all they like to look united under a man who is largely considered unelectable, even within the party. Their “street-cred”, much like their leader’s, will be zero. The Liberals are staring into an abyss of 10- 15 years in opposition if they are decimated in the election and Labour gain control of both houses.

Credibility was a trademark of Turnbull, whether you liked him or not. He gained “street-cred” with the Republican campaign and I believe he will have gained even more over his stand on climate change. A stand he first made as Minister for the Environment. Unfortunately , people will say he joined the wrong party. I would argue his party was hi-jacked.

It won’t take much for Labour to capitalise on Abbott, who usually finds that if he put another foot in his mouth he wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. Abbott will not be able to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of the public, without doing another 180 degree turn in stated policy. I would argue that words that come out of Tony Abbott’s mouth are totally meaningless.

One group that will benefit from today’s vote is Stand-up comedians. At least we can then get a laugh out of it too!

Saving the World

Mayan civilisation, one of the greatest in history, should be our first point of understanding when looking at the today’s global crisis. Today’s crisis is economic, or environmental, or it is political, depending on your own particular frame of reference. So why start with the Mayans? Their amazing society was agriculture based, but grew cities that demanded engineering still marvelled at today. As they grew richer and bigger, the rulers built even bigger temples to the gods that had been so good to them. To build these cities and temples, the forest had to be ravaged and the ground broken. The cities overtook the food sources. The starving people rioted and burnt the cities to the ground.

Empire after empire has fallen, from the early Babylonians, Hatites and Greeks to the British, the Communists and now maybe the Americans. Each empire believed that its way of life was the right way of life and that it was an exportable and teachable commodity. That enlightening the unenlightened will be enough to transpose values and gain acceptance. Like Mayan civilisation the growth of Empire usually was economy driven, it a rush for resources, materials and possible cheap labour (out-sourcing is not a new concept). The need for more, overstretching either sustainability or the ability to defend itself or simply maintain order.

For all sorts of reasons we (mankind) are a civilisation that has continued to take from the source without worrying about consequences. It is irrelevant whether you buy into the climate change argument or not ( I personally do), by2050 we will be living on stockpiles of fossil fuels but our known resources will have disappeared.

When the price of oil went up late last year, the price of food almost doubled. Farmers are no less dependent on fuel than the rest of us. So what will happen when we run out of fuel? Do we just stop living?

We have to change our lifestyles now, we have to create electric cars. Green industries will be the new dot coms. We have to expand our ability to utilise renewable energy as well as explore ways of making nuclear energy cleaner and safer.

So yes the ETS scheme we are presented with in Australia is a political document that buys into climate change, its proposals are about maintaining our lifestyles and our world. It is about saving our world. It makes sense on every level except by those who have a knee jerk reaction against the words, ‘climate change’.

Today we are a global community with global responsibilities, but we can still play our political games. China Is investing enormous amounts of money in developing a viable, marketable electric car, because it believes it will be an economic winner. Green is the way of the future and they know it. They are also aware of the massive pollution problem they have. It should not go unnoted that in recent weeks, these leading up to Copenhagen, both China and India have made noises about curbing carbon emissions.

If you don’t believe in climate change (it’s your right) you must still realise that our only way forward is through a greener future. LET’S SAVE THE WORLD.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

The Nobel Peace Prize for.....

The Nobel Peace Prize for ….....

The shackles of the Church state, broken by a period we refer to as the 'Enlightenment', a period of philosophers who saw man as the end game and what we did here on Earth relevant to the here and now, rather than to some hereafter (although that was not discounted). Different schools of philosophers approached things differently, the rights of man, the role of religion and God in society. Some went so far as to declare God dead in so far as influencing how we are ruled. The Church lost its role as 'the' power-broker (although maintained its vast lands fortunes) and ultimately control of the military. Nationalism replaced religion. This of course, did not reduce the risk of war, but did allow society to develop differently.

Could it be that the philosophers totally overestimated mankind. It seems that if the 20th Century saw a massive turn away from religion, the 21st Century is seeing that trend reversed at an alarming rate and level. Islam is on the rise and promoting itself as the working man's religion, fighting for the underdog. The Church and Judaism especially, who have always seen themselves as the underdog, or at least in that corner, are being painted as the schoolyard bullies.

Europe is behaving like it has gone through therapy, accepting that it had been a bully in the past and going round giving out lollies to all of its perceived victims.

But the victims are playing a game. They put their hand out take the lolly, then kick you in the shin, so hard as to break your leg and runaway, saying they felt threatened by you, because of the past. They do this repeatedly. Luckily there is no shortage of people that want to keep supplying lollies in the “knowledge” that this behaviour was their fault initially.

Today, while we still see value in separation of church and state, radical elements in Islam are calling for exactly the opposite; Shariah law states, like Iran or like Afghanistan was. They want a Calipher through the middle east and Africa and Israel (which fits into Tasmania 3 times) is like a splinter in that vision. It is why non-Muslims in Africa and throughout the middle- east are under threat.

Islam does not see itself as one of the three monotheistic religions. It sees itself as 'the' religion, having superseded both Judaism and Christianity. However, as opposed to other religions, Jews and Christians are seen as 'Children of the book' and therefore, not infidels (depending on who is ranting at the time).

The reaction of the west to what is going on has largely been a return to religion for solace and guidance. In a mainly Christian west, this means turning the other cheek and asking for forgiveness. Of course today's understanding of those words are very different to what was meant. Yet it was the nationalism and philosophy of democracy and 'the rights of man' that have given us the moral guidance and the fortitude to protect what is ours. We should not be doubting the rightness of our way of life.

Interesting lines are drawn in the sand. When then is it okay to interfere in someone else's domestic affairs? Everyone wants to talk about what is happening in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, but what about Sudan,Chad,Nigeria,Afghanistan, India and Bali, just to name a few. If you know of cases of domestic violence, do you report it to the police or let everything sort itself out? If you suspect domestic violence what are your responsibilities? The truth is we let it go by most of the time, because it doesn't concern us.

But it does concern us! Everything concerns us. It is after all a global village now. We do have the right to pass moral judgement and feel confident enough to say, while sorry for the past we will not let that interfere with our world view. Of course conciliation is preferable to confrontation; however it requires goodwill from both sides of the table. Naivety led Chamberlain to announce “Peace in our times”!

President Obama could possibly go on and prove a worthy recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize that seems to be based on intentions and therefore, of which I am no less deserving. Iran is a huge test case for this President and his adversary in Ahmedinajad is a wily man. He sees the west as naïve and I am sure he sees Obama that way.

I hope he is very wrong.