Students at the University of Sheffield have donated four tonnes of goods to city charities. As...
page
Why Recent Graduates Should Join Code for America
page
Sympathy for the dodgy salesmen of Australian politics
page
Babel Rising
page
T.C. Boyle: Incorporating Environmentalism in Art
page
The Stone Roses confirm all planned shows to go ahead after Ian Brown calls Reni a 'c**t' onstage
The year that wasn't, and why you're to blame

When we look back over 2009 it will probably be remembered as a year that wasn't- a year that offered promises of change, hope and optimism but delivered zilch. Let's look at why- by Sean Maguire


The Number One Culprit Is You

If you are reading this, in all likelihood you're from a Western country, and probably one whose government isn't some repressive monstrous hydra of demagogy.

In actuality you are the government.

Yes, it does sound like American ideology at its sappiest, but if you point your finger at government and claim it to be a great evil, you're only insulting yourself.

Because, as we all should know, the government isn't some monolithic dinosaur, but an amalgam of the best and worst of us- and the beauty of it is that it still can be changed and influenced when it lags behind the progressiveness of the general public.

Yes, no-one can deny that politicians (especially those in NSW Labor) do seem duplicitous, devious and set on personal glory rather than public service but really, they're just filling the void of public inaction.

Why?

Well if democratic government ran as well as it could, then it would operate as Athenian democracy did- directly- rather than through representation.

We would gather in halls around the country listen to people convince us one way or another on an issue and then vote over which sounded more practical.

Or to put it in to modernity, maybe we'd give more local power to choosing hospital administration boards to local people, or maybe there'd be more discussions with choosing teachers at schools, or maybe we'd even have regular internet forums to share ideas and work out ways to install them locally.

Or to put it more simply we'd think globally, and then act and vote locally.

Now of course most people think localising government is impractical; councils already struggle to get turn outs for important issues, only hearing complaints once plans have been put into action.

And really this truth is what's stopping us having direct democracy- people don't have time and that's where filling the void with representative democracy comes in.

Yet, instead of writing our representatives constantly, or thinking they actually represent us, most Australians seem to separate themselves from their politicians and follow the Don Chipp line that they all must be bastards.

The truth is we'd much rather watch tv than go to a council meeting, we'd much rather read a book than join a local nature rehabilitation group, and we'd definitely much rather have a nap then go to a panel on how to run public transport.

So as long as you do nothing don't be surprised when nothing get's done.

Anyway, apart from that cynical stab at public indifference there are some notable runner-ups for failure:

Barack Obama

Having been elected, and then inaugurated on the greatest tide of goodwill and hope imaginable, the world waited to see what imminent goodness would spread.

Unfortunately, that goodness has been scarce on actions that show the US to really have turned a corner.

There have been some successes though:

- He and Time's 'Person of the Year' Ben Bernanke launched a stimulus package which kept the US and the world out of a catastrophic depression

- He got a watered down health reform package through a procedural vote at the Senate.

- He might get his climate change bill through.

Largely though, this has been a self-assessed B+ effort, yes he's come up against conservatives who seem harder to move than Palestinians for Israeli settlement, but an A+ President is one who can shift popular intransigence.

Franklin Roosevelt for instance was great at this, turning the tide of conservatism and bringing in the New Deal while debate still raged about fiscal prudence, and balancing budgets.

If Obama wants to be 'the change we can believe in' then he must do a better job of changing public opinion.

Copenhagen

So after 12 years of waiting since Kyoto we can be excused for thinking that this meeting would result in an agreement that was binding and powerful.

Of course we were wrong, and the cynics, sceptics and deniers must be over-the-moon as leaders plodded around as impotently as an eighty year old.

There are other notable failures like Australia's ETS, Malcolm Turnbull, and Michael Jackson at living- but I think we get the picture.

This truly was another year that wasn't.

 
Share |
blog comments powered by Disqus

Tags

 

Related Articles

She Who Must Be Obeid from The Outsider
4 dec  |  Kristina Keneally is the new Premier of NSW. With the second shameful episode in Australian politics this week, we now have ample evidence that the apparatchiks of left and right political parties are so far removed from the citizenry they profess to serve that they have disappeared from sight.

Long knives and short memories seem to be the go. Add to that a complete disregard for the empowerment of community by social networks, mobile technology and the culture of the ‘local' and you have the recipe for the demise of parliamentary democracy.

Not that we will be sorry to see it go. What is interesting, however, is when and what will replace the two-party system and the party machines.

AS a first step look out for the proliferation of political parties in the next Australian elections as voters embrace pluralism in a stand against the Obeid's and Tripodi's of this world.

  . . read more

Unarmed man tasered 13 times by West Australian Police.
5 oct  |  West Australian Premier Colin Barnett has described vision of an unarmed man being tasered 13 times as damaging for the reputation of the state's police force. The footage was released today as part of the Corruption and Crime Commission's (CCC) report on the use of Tasers by WA Police. The report found a growing trend among police to use the weapon predominantly for compliance or on those More.. resisting arrest. In this instance, the man was surrounded by a group of police officers when he was tasered after refusing a strip search at the East Perth lockup in 2008. . . read more
Rudd's second apology, just as pointless?
5 apr  |  By Sean Maguire

Apologising is a uniquely human action, it involves taking responsibility for a mistake and admitting you erred. In someways it also involves asking for forgiveness.

Kevin Rudd, Australia's former PM who was sacked by his own party last year, apologised last night for "killing" his Emissions Trading Scheme which he says brought about his downfall.

Whether this is true or not, his apology echoes another one he made in his first week in government. That "sorry" was to the aboriginal people of Australia who since British colonisation were oppressed, marginalied and literally stolen from their families. 

His apology in that instance was personal and was seen almost universally as a positive step towards reconciliation and healing. It didn't lead to a better livelihood for indigenous Australians and has to be seen now as a symbolic act without much substance behind it.

Hopefully this second apology for failing on climate change can lead to asking for real forgiveness by making some real progress.    . . read more

WAFFLING WHILE THE BULLETS FLY
14 apr  |  The host of the weekly ABC TV panel discussion, Q&A, is Tony Jones, a gifted presenter who charts a cautious path between competing viewpoints. Last night Tony and his guests seemed overawed by the mild mannered US Ambassador, Jeff Bleich who chose his words so diplomatically that he barely said anything at all. And yet what he did say - especially for a former human rights lawyer - was the same old patriotic crap.

Despite the jolly smiles of the panelists, there was a hint of tension.  I wondered, was it because of the shadow cast by the recent exposure of US of war crimes in Baghdad as the show launched into a tedious discussion on the difficulties of being a politician's partner? On and on it went, an orgy of waffling, eliciting tears from the panelists and yawns from viewers.

Finally, a question from the audience raised the temperature.

From a HPD Correspondent 

  . . read more

100 Days - From The Outsider
25 nov  |  HomepageDAILY will be watching the first 100 days of the Ruddministratioin with a critical eye. There are five messages we need to receive before the end of February if the future focus is to be taken seriously.

  • Message 1 Reconciliation with our indigenous forebears to activate appreciation
  • Message 2 Signing Kyoto to take a global position on the environment
  • Message 3 Withdrawing troops from Iraq to break the U.S. sycophancy
  • Message 4 Dramatically increasing the funding for public and university education to stimulate innovation and opportunity
  • Message 5 Providing tax and financial incentives on the demand side for alternative and renewable energy

We're listening Kevin. Do you have the guts to tell? . . read more

Does Warrantless Surveillance Violate the 4th Amendment?
15 mar  |  Reporter Shane Harris traces the controversy over the Bush administration's Terrorist Surveillance Program to a fundamental debate over language in the Fourth Amendment. Harris recalls a heated debate within the administration about the program's constitutionality and the definition of "unreasonable searches and seizures." . . read more
The Great Depression - From The Outsider
14 dec  |  What the hell were we doing for the last 11 years? Sitting back and enjoying the economic fruits of the resources, property and share market boom while our social and cultural capital was systematically devalued by the Federal Government and its infrastructure allowed to dwindle and dribble away?

Whatever.

Just three weeks after the clouds have lifted, we can see just how bad it really was. When we were in the frame we could not see the whole picture. Now we are outside, it's hard to imagine how and why we put up with it. Their meanness, lies, narrow mindedness and divisiveness have put enormous pressure on the youthful, creative and egalitarian culture of Australia.

Let's all pick up the challenge. The new millennium starts here. . . read more

It's Now Official: The U.S. is a Police State
11 feb  |  Americans have been losing the protection of law for years. In the 21st century the loss of legal protections accelerated with the Bush administration’s "war on terror," which continues under the Obama administration and is essentially a war on the Constitution and U.S. civil liberties.

Paul Craig Roberts delves into the dystopia . . read more

The releases that aren´t wiki
15 dec  |  By Sean Maguire

As you might know,´wiki´ in Hawaiin means ´fast´, which is significant for Wikipedia as it is both fast to search and fast to upload information- the same can be said for WikiLeaks. Yet, for this ´Wiki´ what is also fast is the way the media is turning over every relelation about the trial of Assange and the releases themselves without much thought given to their deeper significance.
 
As HPD has written about, the Afghanistan and Iraq war logs while interesting will do little change the world in terms of how Intelligence services operate because public reaction and protest to how they have acted has been so minimal- therefore, while shocking in the way these documents have been released the content hasn´t grabbed the world´s attention. The slowly ebbing release of diplomatic cables changes all that, documents are being seen which will be mulled over for years.
 
One in particular caught my eye; this US cable implicates British Intelligence in the murder of Irish Civil Rights activist Pat Finucane- something which has been long suspected but never proven- now MI5 is being forced to open up its files to assure us of its innocence.
 
This kind of release really won´t be ´wiki´ in how the implications are considred of who´s to blame and what to do with the perpetrators in Ireland and Britain.
 
It really is amazing to think what else is coming.   . . read more
Witness: "The Colony"- Al Jazeera's study of China's impact in Africa
8 sep  |  Witness: "The Colony"- Al Jazeera's study of China's impact in Africa  . . read more
blogs   100words
student
student
 
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY!
"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." -- Ronald Reagan (1986)