I have expectations

I have expectations about our polity that are just not being met by either Julia or Tony - Labor or Liberal.  And that is causing me angst enough to complain about it.

I expect that our party political leaders will have our national interests at heart and will work 24/7 to advance those interests.

Not your own interests or the interests of a foreign power or even the interests of a media mogul or of some weird right wing ideology.

If you can't do that then I wonder what your purpose is - and why you are even here?

I expect our government to outline a serious programme of reform and then to vigorously pursue that during its term.  All the while updating us with regular status reports - and from time to time seeking guidance from us when altered circumstances intervene.

I expect that cabinet ministers will be active and statesmanlike and pursue this reform regardless of the antics of the opposition or the circumstances of government.

I expect our opposition to be as focused on the national interest as our government.  And to develop and offer up their thoroughly researched, considered and competing programme of reform.

Elections ought be about citizens making judgment on these competing reform programmes.  So they will need to be properly understood and debated.

Which is the main reason why we need a new media ;-)

I expect the wellbeing of our citizens and our nation to be the sole and complete focus of our government and our opposition.  There should be no situation where a citizen who is in trouble abroad is abandoned by our government.  Nor a situation where a war is started without reference to our people.

And when some of our MP's and their leaders find themselves sitting around in opposition then I expect them to use that time to up-skill and educate themselves in preparation for when they are able to offer something to the nation as an alternative government.

Does any of this sound like the situation we find ourselves in today?

Military Intelligence

Clearly no-one in our government or even our media actually understand what is going on in Afghanistan.  Or maybe they *pretend* not to understand - so our people won't find out anytime soon.

Our military haven't worked it out either - but no-one would be surprised by that.  Is military intelligence still an oxymoron?

So one of the main reasons why we are seeing these murders of our troops by Afghanistan soldiers or those who are impersonating them is because we Australians are identified as being part of the *American* problem.

Most Australian's won't know about it but the *American* problem arises because their current President spends part of Tuesday selecting names from his "kill list".  And then he  authorises some heavy duty *processing* of those names by the drone corps.

The effect is that sometime after Tuesday - a Predator drone explodes something ugly near a group of people - somewhere in the Afghanistan region and usually kills many of them.

Does it always - or even sometimes manage to nail the bad guys?  And when it doesn't, what do you reckon the survivors think about?

Yep - they think about revenge.  And then they plot to nail a few American troops and any colleagues who are nearby.

The only question is "Why is anyone surprised by this"?

The US will be in Afghanistan forever - because their troops are *bait* for the bad guys.  They can't take them home because that would mean the fighting would move to the US homeland.

And if that ever happened then their President would be toast.

So our troops end up being sacrificed as well.

All because of military intelligence.

Now it's 38

So 5 more young Australian's died today.  In a war with no meaning and no end.

This is a disgrace - our government has lost the plot.  The price of their "suck-up" to the US military is now at 38 dead young Australian's.  How many more will it take before "dear leader" starts to "listen and get the message"?

50 or maybe 100 - perhaps 1000?

The solution to the problem is to announce a full and complete withdrawal tomorrow and have them home in two weeks.  Send our top brass to Washington to negotiate if necessary.

Or just instruct Beasley to "tell them".

And then we start the "Royal Commission" to understand why we went to Iraq and to Afghanistan.  Followed by prosecution of all the politicians who engineered these nasty little adventures.

An earlier comment - here.

And some more - here.

Why would anyone want that?

The quality of our national debate is pretty awful.  Lots of reasons for that - from a broken education system to a completely farked media - all the way out to opinionated old blogistas roaming free without their medication ;-)

I notice that Fairfax is doing its bit to fix the second problem by sacking half its staff.  Uncle Rupert will be pleased.  The rest of us - not so much.

Now there are plenty of Australian bloggers who are more capable than this little black duck swan - so I will leave the analysis and commentary to them and their loyal band of commenteers.  That will keep everyone busy for a week.

But I do have one question - "What is it about our billionaires and millionaires and Bank CEO's and other far-too-rich people - that causes them to think that their free advice has value"?

I only ask because I was reading a blog post from *Gina from Perth* today and her theme was "work harder and cut down on drinking, smoking and socialising" if you want to become wealthy.

Fark - why would anyone want to do that?  Because if you become a wealthy Australian then you also become "fat" and "ugly" and "dumb".  I have seen the evidence.

There is one thing my mates and I already know and that is that Australian's much prefer to drink and smoke and socialise - because the alternative is to be like that modest-little woman from the West or that clown-like bloke from Queensland.

And none of us would want that - would we?

The Monkeywrench Wars

I have pinched a relevant paragraph from this post.  It's a must read.

At this point, very nearly the only thing that maintains US power, and the disproportionate share of the world’s wealth that is the payoff of that power, is our eagerness to pound the bejesus out of Third World nations at the drop of a hat.  If we lose that capacity, we could end up neck deep in kim chee very quickly indeed.

And they call themselves leaders

We seem to be treating our unemployed a bit like how we treat asylum seekers - very very badly.  And for similar reasons.

How on earth is the unemployment benefit of $35/day sufficient to sustain someone?  Everyone who knows anything about the facts of unemployment knows that this is a paltry and insufficient amount.  Especially if we expect unemployed people to both live *and* chase down a new job.

And anyone who has had any experience with CentreLink knows that the most humane thing we could do would be to close it down and euthanise it.  After we have built and staffed a modern social security service delivery organisation.  As if.

And yet anyone and everyone who could do anything about it - won't.  They are all too busy posing for photo's in fluoro vests while standing near unused shovels - and sucking up to warmongers ;-)

Both Abbott and Gillard are locked in a race to the bottom - all to demonstrate who is the meanest and harshest and most unworthy of our vote.  They think that we don't have any choice and will select one of them when next we use a pencil in a polling booth.

Bill Shorten the actual Minister won't support an increase - while telling all and sundry that he can't survive on his $330k per year.

Mike Smith the ANZ CEO is earning $23,000/day but says that $35/day is far too much for the unemployed.

And on it goes as our leaders and the rich try to win brownie points with the nearly "one third of our population" who are - authoritarians.

Oh did you miss it too? The reason politicians do it is to capture every last vote from these people - with more here and here.

PS - Update here.

PS2 - Another update here.

National Security #natsecinquiry

There has been a bit of a buzz on Twitter around the submissions to the "Inquiry into potential reforms of National Security Legislation" that is underway in the House of Representatives.

I suspect that there are quite a few stories in this should any clever young journalist be at all curious - but I doubt that much will appear in our media.

And of 177 submissions 9 are confidential - Why?  I can imagine that ASIO and ASIS might not want to telegraph their punches - but what about the other 7.  OK - at least one is bound to be from the US Government - but do we now have another half dozen secret security organisations looking out for us?

I haven't yet read all the public submissions - but number 87 by Mark Newton impresses.  If you are going to wade through this stuff then you could do worse than start there.

Mark does a pretty good job of demolishing the arguments that have been put forward by the *Security Services* and related industry - but the thing that I really like are his closing remarks - reproduced below.

The other issue that seems clear to me in so many diverse areas of policy is that the Australian Government harbours a deep distrust of the Australian people.
In a democracy it should work the other way around: The Government should trust voters to make good decisions about the kinds of people they elect to represent them, and voters should have every expectation that the Government will mess it up, and demand strong and effective checks and balances to make sure they don’t.
In Australia the voters seem to be doing their job adequately, with levels of Government trust at near historic lows. But the Government is not doing its job: The Government is not trusting the electorate, and, at least in relation to our security services, it’s not carrying out its duty by implementing adequate checks and balances to protect the electorate’s interests.
How is it that we can have the AFP, ASIO, ASIS, and other agencies I’m probably not even authorized to know about, propose that I’m so mistrusted that I need to have the last two years of my communications logged in excruciating detail, just in case I one day commit a crime?
The Government needs to do better.
Stop being frightened of everything; replace fear with rational decision making, where we understand that we don’t need to panic just because the Americans are panicking on “24.”
And live up your side of the democratic social contract: You’re supposed to live within strict constraints, unavoidable checks and balances, and have faith that we voters will generally get it right.
Lowering the standards on search warrants, creating offence provisions for not decrypting data, and implementing data retention systems aren’t compatible with those principles.
As a Government, you were wrong to ever propose them in the first place. Now please, withdraw them, and help us enjoy our historically safe society by letting the pendulum swing the other way for a while.

I agree 100%.