G'day Pen-pals,
>I was, am, and will be interested in what you have to say about Oz. >The
Gough Whitlam stuff you sent a while back is important, as is any >material or
thoughts on the present resurgence of One Nation, the >apparent emergence
of the Greens, and whatever remains of progressive >politics within Labor.
One Nation is doing well just now, mainly because the major parties are
undergoing a real and thoroughly deserved legitimation crisis, and Australians
(who are legally obliged to vote) can but express their contempt by voting for
anyone who offers antiglobalisation sentiments. And that's the problem One
Nation has - it's a reactionary unit based on the rural petit-bourgoisie (and,
after oil price rises and the introduction of a margin-narrowing,
paper-work-multiplying goods'n'services tax last July, increasing chunks of
the suburban petit-bourgoisie) and it's a nationalist-statist-small cappo
denial of 'globalism' as a whole. It makes demands of the state that can no
longer be met; pushes an abstract 'personal-responsibility' egalitarian
liberalism that denies class/ethnic/cultural/gender inequities (eg 'blaming
the victim' stuff such that charges of racism, for instance, are easy to level
at 'em); pushes a 'those were the days' sentimentalism; and depends entirely
on the persona of the inarticulate, often hysterical but strangely likeable
Pauline Hanson.
Anyway, One Nation is getting support from across the spectrum (the
disillusioned are everywhere, after all) and has a real shot at a producing a
couple of senators - which may be enough to carry the balance in the next
senate. A worry, as the nationalism is xenophobic and effectively racist, the
liberalism is one of judgement rather than emancipation; the social ideals are
fifty years out of date, and Hanson just hasn't the mental ammo to resist
opportunistic radical rightist agendas or go beyond feeding discontent. A
national vote of around six per cent, with local spikes in Queensland, seems
their electoral limit. But they are having an effect on the political
culture, as the media find Hanson irresistable, and we have to have debates we
thought we'd put away years ago. Capital is cross with 'em, because the media
coverage gets picked up in the region, and our current and prospective SE
Asian trading partners are having their suspicions regarding Australian
whitism confirmed.
The Greens are where the left goes these days, even though they still haven't
anything like a class-conscious electoral politics or social policy. Again,
we're just talking a 'somewhere to go' option for the disillusioned uni
student or graduate. The Greens have benefitted from the traditional 'third
force' (the Australian Democrats) being seen as too close to the conservative
government. The latter have a glamorous new leader now, but I reckon the
Greens could get a senator or two in at the elections, too. The Bush
turnaround, local salinity crises, and Queensland land clearance orgies have
combined to make an expressly green politics pretty trendy, so I think The
Greens'll maintain their presence for the foreseeable future. What comes of
it all really depends on who the successful candidates are, as Green
candidates are a diverse lot. A five per cent electoral presence seems a
realistic expectation, and that could be enough to get one or two across the line.
>What's going on in East Timor?
Local discontent as to the tight reins the UN is keeping on local aspirations.
The liberation looks more like a new domination every day, and the top-down
development programme is predictably stalling. The media is saying nothing.
East Timor is an ex-story.
>Is the Keating attempt to forge closer SE Asian ties (as opposed to >Robert
Conquest-type it'll be all white on the night international >relations)
still a goer?
Since John Howard pronounced that Oz saw itself as Uncle Sam's deputy in the
region, the Indonesian population and Malaysia's leadership (for two) have
correctly discerned that our foreign policy is still of the 'white man's
burden' variety. We've recently upped the ante by announcing a major
sustained military budget increase (the Defense people used to argue they
needed money because there was nothing more dangerous than a united Indonesia;
now they're getting money because there's nothing more dangerous than a
fragmenting Indonesia), and a new regional arms race is likely to raise
temperature and take food out of mouths. Australia is, in short, more on the
nose in the region than it has been for a decade.
>Any views on the recent Vietnamese CP Congress?
Well, nothing in the media here (of course), but it seems delegates are pretty
free to speak. Lots of pronouncements about the Party having to review its
structure (endemic corruption, arrogance of the security branches,
non-representative and advanced age of cadres and executives, bureaucracy
trumping compassion etc); some general comments about restructuring an
education system to meet the challenges and derive the benefits of this
'information-age' thingy everyone else has been on about (if not edifying
about) for fifteen years; and a lot of stuff about dangerously lapsing Party
and public morality. All apparently very general, but perhaps indicative of
some profound self critique and some new broom measures. Still confidently
statist-commie stuff on the whole, though. Does that fit your take, Michael?
>What about the maverick new leader of the Liberal Democrats in Japan?
Undertaking a massive personal-image-bolstering programme (inventing a
rock'n'roll street credibility, beefing up a bit of nationalist sentiment for
instance) in order to develop the personality stocks needed to take on the old
party hacks and cronies in the campaign to Anglo-Saxonise the finance system
(measure the bad debt problem, bail out some biggies and isolate some terminal
cases) and undertake a Raygunesque military-Keynesian recovery programme? I
dunno ...
> What about it, Rob?
Well, I was kinda hoping you'd tell me ...
Cheers,
Rob.
