It’s time for the regular Monday message board, where you are invited to post your thoughts on any topic. I haven’t had time to post on the competing royal tours, but I’d be interested in readers’ thoughts. Civilised discussion and no coarse language, please.
56 thoughts on “Monday Message Board”
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John Quiggin 
I posted this on the previous thread, but I thought it might be an interesting question for the MMB (apologies for reposting)
What are the odds of an attack on Iran before the end of the year?
I have googled the candidates for the Werriwa by-election. Some interesting reading.
Odds of the US ‘attacking’ Iran. 1 million to 1. Its a ridiculous assertion made by the far left that the US is out to ‘attack’ anyone and everyone.
The point about Iran, as it has admitted, is that it secretly, on the black market no less, sourced nuclear technologies and materials to run its nuclear programme.
Now, why would a country in an oil rich region, with known seismic activity, ultimately poor populace, and run by an extreme dictatorship want with a nuclear programme, except to generate uranium enabled weapons.
Now joined by tin pot countries like North Korea, this is a very worrying time.
The Mary tour threatens to turn this agnostic on republicanism into a bomb-throwing regicide!
With industrial relations looming up as a big issue for the year, the thoughts of the late historian and classical economist Bill Hutt may be of interest. They may not please the leadership of the trade unions and the left but they should be considered by people who are willing to re-examine deeply held beliefs just in case they do not stand up to scrutiny. For an introduction to his contribution:
http://badanalysis.com/catallaxy/index.php?p=698
Would love to hear mr downer comment on the news that our Italian allies in Iraq have paid millions in ransom for their journo.
What was the mantra-don’t negotiate with terrorists.
US v Iran.
1. No invasion. Short odds-on. (In other words, invasion extremely unlikely.)
2. “Surgical strike” on some obnoxious facility or other as cover for significant military drawdown in Iraq. Evens.
3. Withdrawal from Iraq via Syria. 5/1 and drifting in the market.
4. Withdrawal via Afghanistan in promotion of Afghanistan as the poster-child for “The March of Freedom”. 3/1 tightening. Put out more flags in Kabul.
There was a story in the Australian last week about a woman who was complaining about the interest rises (by 1/4 of a percent), and how she would be doing it tough paying the mortgage on her luxury house in Rose Bay. You could actually see the harbour views in the photo of her in her living room. The poor woman said she’d now have to drive to (down market) Maroubra to buy her groceries.
And I thought Darfur was the epitome of human suffering. The Australian has done us all a service by showing us what tragedies exist in our own community.
Katz, re your cynicism regarding US in Afghanistan. Rather than oppose the US when they intervene and criticise them when they don’t intervene (e.g. Rwanda), it is really about time that critics started to spell out a positive policy of their own too encourage democracy in the Islamic world (that is apart from labelling murderous one party states as democratic as leading US academics such as John Esposito tend to do). For example, what should be the west’s policy towards Pakistan, North Korea and Iran. What about Afghanistan should not countries’ such as France and Germany play a more constructive role in encouraging modernisation and stop harping from the sidelines. Is France’s role in the genocide in Rwanda not worthy of more criticism. Is not the treatment of women in Islamic cultures (including those in the west) not more worthy of criticism that middle class white Anglo-Saxon males supposedly not doing their fair share of the washing up. The reality is that most critics hate Bush, Howard and Blair so much (or simply western culture in general) that their lack of proportion re issues such as Iraq and Afghanistan is essentially akin to someone who dealing with some obnoxious noisy neighbours on a daily basis starts to represent them as akin in the nastiness stakes to someone like Ivan Milat.
FYI MB, I did support the invasion of Afghanistan. My beef there is the the Bushites have made a hash of it.
1. Propping up warlords is not nation-building. Allowing the resurgence of the opium economy is not the same as encouraging the growth of a civil society.
2. Your reference to Ivan Milat is utterly mystifying.
3. I love Western culture for its greatest ornament — scepticism. Bush, Howard and Blair aren’t flowers, they’re weeds.
4. Last time I checked North Korea wasn’t Muslim.
FYI MB, I did support the invasion of Afghanistan. My beef there is that the Bushites have made a hash of it.
1. Propping up warlords is not nation-building. Allowing the resurgence of the opium economy is not the same as encouraging the growth of a civil society.
2. Your reference to Ivan Milat is utterly mystifying.
3. I love Western culture for its greatest ornament — scepticism. Bush, Howard and Blair aren’t flowers, they’re weeds.
4. Last time I checked North Korea wasn’t Muslim.
Michael, for God’s sake, stop acting like a spam bot that’s been programmed to generate the same message over and over again. Write about something different! Anything will do – the weather, sports, restaurant reviews, your sex life – anything at all as long as it doesn’t involve Muslims, George Bush or academics.
Katz, I don’t recall suggesting North Korea is Muslim – another example of pointless nitpicking to avoid the main issues. Re your weed comment well Blair, at least, has greatly improved the UK health and education services, rescued Labour from oblivion, and has been willing to put principal ahead of popularity in supporting the war in Iraq. Bush might be a simpleton but simple ideas such as freedom can have a powerful effect. Now maybe if European policy elites, left wing academics and other neo-reactionaries masquerading as social progressives were to stop apologising for Islamic extremism, including greatly playing down the influence of extremist ideologies among Islamic populations, they might be able to have a more constructive input into important policy debates. As for scepticism – being sceptical means, among other things, a willingness to challenge orthodoxies, including those pervading academia and social movements. Qualities that are sorely lacking from many participants to this blog. My comments re Ivan Milat clearly required a greater degree imagination than you possess.
Dave, I was responding to others comments on this topic – so presumably a spam bot is someone who disagrees with your views. Moreover, the Iraq war and the general war on terrorism have brought to a head the poverty of much left-of-centre thinking. Now you might not care about that, or the needless suffering that goes on in the world because social progressives prefer to criticise Howard and Blair rather than address the real evils in the world, but I do. I think almost 100 years of the left putting ideology ahead of social justice is enough.
Michael, I care about the quality of left of centre thinking, terrorism and the war on Iraq. It’s just that they don’t occupy my every waking thought.
But then, my insides aren’t being eaten away at the thought of some cutting remark a post modern Marxist made to me in the university tea room, or how I was done in by affirmative action in the public service. I don’t lie awake at night fuming about what John Espisoto said on this or that subject. I don’t even lie awake at night fuming about what Michael Burgess or John Quiggin or Katz or Razor or anyone else said about this or that subject.
Michael, mate, all this congealed anger at the world can’t be good for your health. Calm down and get yourself a life.
MB, several people who post here, especially on Iraq and other issues pertaining to Islam, are driven by prescriptive views of the world. With respect, that is what unites you and several leftists who take ethical stands on the issue.
On the other hand, I’m less interested in the rights and wrongs of the case. Rather I’m interested in the practicalities, the cans and can’ts of the case.
I believe that Bush has taken on too big a task that the United States cannot complete successfully and whose failure will produce unfortunate consequences for the foreseeable future.
I believe that no amount of barracking on my part will alter at all that glum prognosis.
Wishes aren’t fishes.
‘Its a ridiculous assertion…’
Of course, Roberto. Bush told us that himself in as many words. (Or did he say preposterous?). But all options are on the table, aren’t thay?
Dave, it is possible to be concerned about politics and have a life – I am not so sure though about the vast majority of the population whose lives consist of watching reality TV and being obsessed with the lives of the rich and famous. I suppose I could do what a number of Marxist academics have done -name their pets Karl, Rosa or Gramsci and sit around collecting their pay checks while pretending that criticising Bush at dinner parties classifies as social activism. IN relation to anger it is the likes of you who need to get over their irrational hatred of Howard et al and view the world as it really is. Also, call me paranoid but I am convinced a nasty surprise in the shape of a nuke or other nasty WMD is coming our way soon (or, at least, the way of some other western country). So I will continue to hector sanctimonious individuals such as your self prone to kindergarten level pop psychology.
“I will continue to hector sanctimonious individuals such as your self prone to kindergarten level pop psychology.”
Yawn
T US policies over the past 10 years have been so over the map it not funny. I would like to add the Sierra Leone to the rwandan argument. in the early to mid 90’s the private military company (PMC) executive outcomes restored peice to the country at the request of the democraticly elected goverment. but then the west led by the USA presured the SL government to expell EO but offered no assistence in its replace. and with in 3 months of EO leaving the rebels captured the capital and the autrosities started all over again.
the US only intervine when they have some thing to gain. so if the “wise” mr Bush thinks he can get some think out of invading iran then he will.
but thats the only way he will do it.
“Odds of the US ‘attacking’ Iran. 1 million to 1. Its a ridiculous assertion made by the far left that the US is out to ‘attack’ anyone and everyone.”
Hmmm, President Bush himself had this to say on the subject
“The notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. Having said that, all options on the table”.
Careful readers will notice that Bush only denied that the US is getting ready to attack Iran, right now. That doesn’t mean they won’t get ready some time soon. And since all options are on the table the odds of it happenning are a lot shorter than 1 million to one.
“I suppose I could do what a number of Marxist academics have done -name their pets Karl, Rosa or Gramsci…”
I have an admission to make. When I was sharing a flat with a NSW Teachers Federation organiser in 1987-88, we named our cat Rosa, as in Luxemburg. And when I moved to Brisbane later in 1988 and moved in with my new partner, I discovered that she had a cat called Vladimir. Also, last weekend I finished reading Dune for the third time (Dune culminates in a successful neo-Islamic Jihad against an empire whose symbol is the eagle), and I taught myself to play “Real Men” by Joe Jackson on acoustic guitar. I name the Goddess and Bob Brown as my witnesses that everything I have just written is true.
There you go, Michael! All your suspicions about me have been confirmed in a single post.
“The notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. Having said that, all options on the table�.
Dave Ricardo,
You forgot to mention that everybody present found the statement so funny that the official transcript on the whitehouse website puts the word “Laughter” after that quote to describe the audience’s reaction.
Note also that the word “attack” comprises a much wider range of activities than “invade”. And “invade” in turn comprises a wider range of activities than “liberate”.
Perhaps Bush has read John Howard, “How to Equivocate,” Kirribilli Press, 1996 – 2005.
“The notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. Having said that, all options on the table�.
Dave and still working it out etc, I acknowledge your right to comment on this issue without being told to get a life. Having got that of my chest, your sarcastic comments re Bush’s supposed ambiguity on Iran simply illustrate your complete ignorance of global realities. Bush will in all probability not attack this country. US forces are stretched and, apart from facing massive criticism, they could not rely on the likes of France and Germany (or Muslim countries for that matter) for assistance in liberating Iranians from the mad mullahs who currently rule them and in ensuring they do not pass on weapons technology to other Islamic extremists. That said, the US clearly needs to keep playing bad cop to Europe’s pathetically soft cop if there is going to be any hope of pressure succeeding in stopping Iran from getting the bomb – a prospect any rational person should dread.
Michael, I don’t see the point of belligerently starting an online flame war on each and every post, and turning every single topic back to George Bush and Muslims armed with WMDs. Are you trying to scare us?
Paul Norton, I once met a Dutch girl who had a pet rat she called Juliana. I don’t know whether that was a compliment or not.
Of course ‘all options are on the table’ – that includes diplomatic.
But let’s not kid ourselves that the Iranians would be jumping up and down to disclose their nuclear programme activities unless the US particularly backed up diplomatic engagement with ‘the big stick’.
Monday’s Question?
The Ausralian Press Council has accused the “Herald-Sun” of irresponsible journalism but is under appeal. An issue that should be on the front page of all dailys and on the A.B.C.
It’s not, and no more clues.(No 1270)
What’s everyone’s take on the Saudi elections?
Nic:
Any progress is good and Saudi Arabia is a potential disaster in the making.
Half-elected half-appointed local councils elected by men only from a severely restricted candidate list is the sort of thing most of the other gulf states introduced decades ago.
The challenge now will be move rapidly onward.
Unfortunately Crown Prince Abdullah, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, can’t do too much too fast or he risks alienating the rest of the Ibn Saud clan – who will choose who succeeds the current king when he dies.
Abdullah is a pragmatic reformer – he may not have an abstract fondness for democracy but he knows that the House of Saud needs to modernise and make reforms or risk losing all their power and all their wealth.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/Gerard-Henderson/It-will-take-more-than-this-to-change-the-ABC/2005/03/07/1110160750150.html
Here’s another case of Gerard Henderson beating his gums over the imperviousness of the ABC to conservative control at the Board level. Essentially he’s saying that Janet Albrechtson, like Michael Kroger before her, will break her teeth if she attempts to change ABC culture.
This conclusion must be infuriating for all those Right Wing obsessives who, Ahab-like have been hunting the ABC Moby Dick for more than a decade.
Reality to the Good Ship Pequod … your time’s up!
Henderson is right. Albrechtson might think she’s going in to fight the good fight over Kerry O’Brien and Phillip Adams, but when she gets there, she will find herself awash with Board papers on the IT strategy, the divisional budgets, and the financial accounts. This is what Boards do. They set strategies for businesses and they give directions to management for the implementation of those strategies. Boards aren’t debating societies. Unless Albrechston has a hitherto well hidden interest for the minutiae of corporate governance, she will lose interest very quickly.
The idea that an external director who simply turns up once a month to a board meeting can change an organisation’s culture is risible. It’s particularly risible in this case, when the Chairman, who controls the Board’s agenda, and who himself is an old fashioned conservative preserver of institutions, has no intention of changing anything.
There is undoubtedly a massive degree of hypocrisy on the behalf of the right wing of politics re public broadcasting bias, given the all too obvious bias of even more influential section of the media including talk back radio and the commercial TV channels. That said, when I first came to Australia in 1980 the quality media was quality – the SMH is now a pathetic excuse for a newspaper and the ABC has demonstrated bias on some key issues. Many of its journalists are simply more educated, left-leaning and polite versions of their right wing counterparts. George Orwell would struggle to get employed in current ABC. Political issues aside there is a pathetic lack imagination with the ABC and an unwillingness to take risks. A good illustration of this is the refusal to accept the brilliant British series shameless which went to SBS instead. And I won’t hold my breath for either organisation to show Submission the movie which after it was shown in Holland resulted in the public execution of Theo van Gogh.
There is undoubtedly a massive degree of hypocrisy on the behalf of the right wing of politics re public broadcasting bias, given the all too obvious bias of even more influential section of the media including talk back radio and the commercial TV channels. That said, when I first came to Australia in 1980 the quality media was quality – the SMH is now a pathetic excuse for a newspaper and the ABC has demonstrated bias on some key issues. Many of its journalists are simply more educated, left-leaning and polite versions of their right wing counterparts. George Orwell would struggle to get employed in current ABC. Political issues aside there is a pathetic lack imagination with the ABC and an unwillingness to take risks. A good illustration of this is the refusal to accept the brilliant British series shameless which went to SBS instead. And I won’t hold my breath for either organisation to show Submission the movie which after it was shown in Holland resulted in the public execution of Theo van Gogh.
Michael Burgess—“Rather than oppose the US when they intervene and criticise them when they don’t intervene (e.g. Rwanda), it is really about time that critics started to spell out a positive policy of their own too encourage democracy in the Islamic world (that is apart from labelling murderous one party states as democratic as leading US academics such as John Esposito tend to do).”
Havent the US essentially created a new one party state in Iraq by handing the reins of power to the Shia? Do you really think the Kurds and other groups will really be able to effect meaningful changes in their lives?? As for non intervention, I think you mistakenly believe too wholeheartedly in American exceptionalism. The US has intervened in countries for far less than honourable intentions (Guatamala), numerous times, to retore status quo arrangments. It refused to do anything about the East Timor invasion of 75 because it was complicit in the arming of the Indonesian military. The one sided nature of historiography paints the US as some type of monopoliser on liberty, and it is in essence best able to administer justice. Reality, however tells a much diferent story.
I am well aware of the US’s less than honourable history in the likes of Guatemala etc – probably far more than 99.99999 percent of current critics of the US. That it not the issue though the issue the current agenda of a different President. This needs to be analysed on its merits and not from a generally pathological frame of reference in which the US and its allies are criticised whatever they do while the dangers of Islamic extremism are minimized to a bizarre extent. If Europe had the power of the US it too would be threatening Iran with military intervention if they do not stop developing nuclear bombs. This is a fact the anti-US crowd ignore.
The International Crisis Group, at the direction of the UN, has in fact been looking at possible changes to international law to define when intervention in the internal affairs of a country is justified.
From memory, the two possible conditions that would justify such an intervention were evidence that an attack on another state had occurred or was imminent – whether it was being planned by the government of the country or by a non-state actor such as Al Qaida based in that state – or where there was a threat of loss of human life greater than that likely to occur as a result of the intervention.
An international conference on the proposed tests concluded that the invasion of Afghanistan, the Kosovo War and the Gulf War would have been justified under such criteria as would intervention in Sudan and Congo – and that the invasion of Iraq was not.
Michael, while we can’t blame past US policy horrors like Guatemala on the current US President (though we can blame them on his father, who was head of the CIA at the time of some of the most egregious US intervention in Latin America, but let’s not visit the sins of the father on the son, not for the moment anyway) George W is right now supporting the very nasty and thuggish regime in Uzbekistan. This, by the way, is a Muslim country, and if you looked hard at what they thought about Israel, I don’t think you’d like what saw.
How does that fit in your world view?
Dave, firstly I don’t pretend for a moment that the application of US power is always fair or wise. Critics though tend to universally condemn the US, be unduly obsessed with the so-called negative consequences of western culture on non-western cultures, greatly play down other evils and view the ideologically motivated and corrupt UN through rose-coloured glasses. If critics had taken a more principled and rational stance re US intervention in Iraq and, in many cases, not opposed or begrudgingly supported intervention in Afghanistan and in Kosovo they would be in a much better position to argue for change in the likes of Uzbekistan. It would also help if they ditched the post-modernist and political correct crap and operated from a framework informed by revitalised liberal democratic values (of either a moderate left or right flavour) in which universal values such a universal human rights and equality for women were none negotiable.
Ian, there are in some cases over 150 candidate vying for only 5 positions, I wouldnt clal that a restricted candidate list.
Still, it is a bit of a joke as no one has much clue what they are doing and the public isnt voting intelligently for the most part – not to mention a 10% voter registration rate – but the elections are likely to improve as time goes on.
Some contributors to this forum have complained that Western feminists and leftists focus exclusively on the failings of Anglo-Celtic men and are silent on the oppression of women in Islamic societies. Today’s edition of The Age carries a column arguing quite a different position on the same issue:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/Opinion/A-smarter-way-to-fight-for-Muslim-women/2005/03/08/1110160824806.html
In posting this link I am not necessarily endorsing everything Waleed Aly has to say. Rather, I am pointing out that Western feminists are not seen by many Moslems to have been silent about the position of women in Islamic societies – they are criticised for having done the exact opposite.
“If critics had taken a more principled and rational stance re US intervention in Iraq and, in many cases, opposed or begrudgingly supported intervention in Afghanistan and in Kosovo”
I think this sums up the flaws in your thinking. Principled and rational stands against the Iraq war were not lacking and support for the Kosovo and Afghanistan wars was widespread even among the left. If you are going to conflate the extreme left you have describe in that quote with the left in general then there is little point arguing with you. Your arguments do not work without this straw man version of the left you have created.
Paul Waleed Aly argues that only ‘fight for gender justice from within an Islamic framework will stand the best chance of success’. And that western feminists are doing more harm than good in criticising the treatment of women in Islam. This is of course all nonsense as well as being a religious fundamentalist viewpoint. First, many western feminists and liberals have been relatively silent on this issue (relative to their criticsim of Bush or their support for affirmative action for middle class western women). What criticsim there has been has been relatively mild compared to the disgusting way women, liberal minded individuals and religious and other minority groups are generally treated in Islamic societies. This is another typical example of a so-called moderate Islamists being simply unwilling to accept any responsbility for the evils done in the name of religion.
still working it out – This is nonsense. If I recall John Pilger, Noem Chomsky and other leading lights of the left have criticsed both intervention in Afganistan and Kosovo. Many of those who support it are quick to highlight any problems rather than suggest constructive policies. The opposition to the war in Iraq was generally far from principled and driven by anti-US or, at least, anti-Bush anti-Howard hatred. You are the who is a fool.
Why do you assume that John Pilger and Noam Chomsky speak for all opponents of the Iraq war? You confirmed my point.
Still working it out, I wonder why they and Michael Moore sell so many books if they are such marginal figures on the left.
Hey Michael, what do you reckon about these comments on the Israel Palestinan conflict?
 “Chairman Abbas condemns terror and hopefully … will take substantial steps against it. Both peoples have experienced enough wars and bloodshed.
A simplistic way of describing the conflict is to concentrate only on the suffering of one side. It does no justice to the truth, but it is as populist as it is provocative”
Dave, you state that a ‘simplistic way of describing the conflict is to concentrate only on the suffering of one side. It does no justice to the truth, but it is as populist as it is provocative�. I could not agree more given that when Israel had its citizens repeatedly blown up (after Arafat walked away from the great deal offered at the Clinton peace talks) and retaliated (generally very moderately) as anyone would in such circumstances it then got blamed by the Europeans, the Arab world, most of the left and the UN. How dare these terrible Jews defend themselves?
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Probably for the same reasons Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly and sean Hammity sell well.