The Road to Surfdom has been live since May 2002. It is a venue for discussion, argument, the exchange of information and the glorification of Chickenhawks. Anyone can comment, so please feel free to join in. And stay tuned for further developments.
What a wretched business this US presidential campaign is.
Now the conventions are over, we can expect two months of the Democrats mouthing endless platitudes that include the word ‘change’, while ALP-style they slide so close to their opponents’ policies it’s hard to tell the difference and justify it with bluster about the importance of ‘not giving the Republicans ammunition’ (i.e. by disagreeing with them) and ‘appealing to the swinging voter’ and ‘the vital middle ground’.
Meanwhile the Republicans will alternate between sniggering at jokes about Obama bin Biden and Barry’s inability to bowl and screeching outrage at Obama’s hatred of America and the elitist media’s recalcitrance in refusing to present a 100% pro-Republican message. As examples, you need read only this (H/T Hilzoy):
After he was asked for an explanation on why voters should question Obama’s love for his country, Inhofe issued a written statement on Friday to clarify his earlier comments.
“Let me be clear,” he said.
“I am not questioning Sen. Obama’s patriotism, but you have to question why at times he seems so obviously opposed to public displays of patriotism and national pride, like wearing an American flag lapel pin.”
DENVER, Sept. 6 (UPI) — Democratic officials Saturday denied a news report that Republicans picked 12,000 U.S. flags from the trash after the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Fox News reported supporters of Republican presidential nominee John McCain claimed a vendor at Invesco Field told them the flags were left in trash bags near garbage bins following Democratic nominee Barack Obama’s acceptance speech Aug. 28.
US election: Storm as Oprah says no to Palin interview
We can also expect more learned commentary like this (H/T maha):
The most important thing to know about the left today is that it is centered on social issues. At root, it always has been, ever since the movement took form and received its name in the revolutionary Paris of the 1790s. In order to drive toward a vision of true human liberation, all the institutions and moral codes we associate with civilization had to be torn down. The institutions targeted in revolutionary France included the monarchy and the nobility, but even higher on the enemies list of the Jacobins and their allies were organized religion and the family, institutions in which the moral values of traditional society could be preserved and passed on outside the control of the leftist vanguard.
…
If this analysis is correct, the single most important narrative holding the left together in today’s politics and culture is the one offered–often with little or no dissent–by adversarial feminism.
I think he’s writing about people like me and most of the regular commenters here. Being sworn enemies of the moral values of traditional society, we’re all bound together by our adversarial feminism. So now you know.
What fucking morons these pseudo-analysts are.
If I was writing in the USA I guess I would soldier on but I’m not, so I won’t. It’s all too nauseating and the cumulative effect is a tendency to despise much of the human race and an associated deep depression. Expect my writings to be a US presidential election comment-free zone until November, when I anticipate writing something sombre about the narrow victory of President John McCain. By the way, did you know he was a prisoner of war? Maybe he’ll be able to take his revenge on the gooks at last.
Democracy depends on a certain level of ethical conduct on the part of those who stand for public office. One of the main reasons I despised Howard and his cronies so much was their preparedness to be deliberately dishonest with the electorate when it suited their purposes.
The US presidential campaign is witnessing not just deception and dishonesty but blatant, outright lies. Latest example: John McCain said this about his new running mate who is suddenly the darling of the Republicans and looks a fair bet to sweep him into the White House:
“You know what I enjoyed the most? She took the luxury jet that was acquired by her predecessor and sold it on eBay — and made a profit!” McCain declared in Wisconsin at a campaign stop on Friday. It could not be immediately determined what that profit was.
The truth is:
But in fact, the jet did not sell on eBay. It was sold to a businessman from Valdez named Larry Reynolds, who paid $2.1 million for the jet, shy of the original $2.7 million purchase price, according to contemporaneous news reports, including a story in the New York Times.
Dan Spencer, the director of administrative services for Alaska’s Public Safety Department, said that the Republican speaker of the Alaska House, John L. Harris, brokered the deal. Reynolds made campaign contributions to both Palin and Harris in 2006 and 2007.
What happened? It appears that, as promised during her bid for governor in 2006, Palin did try to sell the plane on eBay but that doing so was not as easy as it might have sounded. After putting it up to auction, there was one serious bid, in December 2006, and it fell through. Still, the Westwind II was sold about eight months later, achieving Palin’s goal of ridding the state of a luxury item.
But that hasn’t stopped Palin, or John McCain, from implying — and, on Friday, claiming outright — that Palin did sell the jet on the Internet.
I’m sure McCain’s campaign won’t miss a beat. They’ll go right on telling the lie because it supports their chosen ‘narrative’ … i.e. a work of creative fiction in which Sarah Palin is the heroine (not based on a true story). They have also invented a wholly fictitious account of Obama’s policies which they repeat every chance they get, because they know most of their supporters would never read anything published by the Democrats but will swallow whole the myths promulgated by their candidate … and will in turn spread them throughout the wider community.
It’s not just the Republicans who do this of course. Who can forget Hillary Clinton’s idiotic claim to have come under sniper fire in Sarajevo or wherever it was, when nothing of the kind ever happened either there or anywhere else? This was not some trivial memory lapse but a brazen lie (unless she truly believed it actually happened, in which case thank god she lost the nomination).
Once candidates for high office start to behave in this amoral manner, the requirements for a genuine democracy break down. Democracies are like markets - participants need a reasonable amount of information before they can function effectively. The problems are compounded these days by the tendency of so many in the media to join enthusiastically in helping to promote the lies, instead of exposing them for what they are. When lies become the everyday currency of political discussion, the whole system of governance inevitably becomes corrupt.
Is there a solution? We’ll know that in November. If McCain’s evil warmongers win office then it will be clear that lies and deception are the way to succeed in American politics. If Obama wins, he might - possibly - be the harbinger of an ethical renaissance. But I won’t be holding my breath.
Do you remember being 17? Ah yes you say, the time I got weekend detention, the sexual tension between me and the cute redhead from the right side of the tracks.Â
No no, you goose, you’re thinking of The Breakfast Club. I’m talking about you’re own actual late adolescence, with the Australian accents.  Â
Come on, you remember. Everyone “going out with” everyone else until you’d been through the whole circle and we all start again at the beginning. The smart bloke who started showing up to physics with a weird smile and an unwillingness to speak. Because he was on acid.  The gathering where your mate’s little sister had a crush on you and kept re-filling your beer glass, which was an entirely new experience for you and of course this was the only party after year 9 that your mum ever picked you up from and you had to ask her to pull the Volkswagon over so you could politely open the door and suavely chunder into the gutter. The time you and Weed snuck out the front of the party so you wouldn’t have to share your stash, but those eagle eyed females saw you and followed so there’s six of you sitting there passing the bong around when the police cruiser rolled past. Oh yeah, you forgot the Blue Light Disco was up the road. The Beautiful Girl you had a huge crush on, and there was that one time you really thought you might have a shot because she was upset about something and you actually managed to listen and say something not totally dickheaded, but then the really tall private school dude muscled in and ruined the moment, and you ended up in the back of that Gemini with the university girl, then later the Beautiful Girl was swept off her feet by the 19 year old tough guy, ended up on the run from the law with him in Tasmania and a mum at 18, by which time you were learning how to bayonet people in another state so there went that. That other party where your mate took his HR for a drive at 2 am and put it in the ditch down some fire trial. How close you all came to rolling Chewy’s Corolla that time, then later he drowned trying to rescue his little brother in the sinking of a Malaysian ferry. The look on your mate’s face after the principal explained to him that age of consent laws did in fact apply as between him and the year 10 girl. The time Sharon was too drunk to walk home, or indeed stand up, so they put her on the back of her boyfriend’s motorcycle.
No? Maybe that was just Adelaide.
Anyway, thank the Good Lord Baby Jesus Christ Almighty on a Stick that my parents never ran for office.
For over a decade clem snide has been crusading tirelessly to dispel the myth of the razor in the apple. With 5 records of heartfelt paraniod rants, sexy screaming bowed banjos, and the pitter patter of pianos stuffed with pillows simulating the distant hum of 4 AM vending machines…… they continue to press ahead. Like a deer cornered by the overpass clem snide moves with awkward grace. The public address systems vibrate with the strained fake laughter of children or buzzing cicadas and the captains of industry are left feeling sleepy, and haunted by self-doubt.
Yeah yeah whatever … I still like their latest song.
As noted yesterday, September 3 is now Battle for Australia Day. Did you know that it’s also ‘Merchant Navy Day’?
A Rudd Labor Government will request the Governor General to declare 3 September of each year a national day of observance to pay tribute to the wartime service of the Merchant Navy in Australia.
Australia’s wartime history is full of the experiences of ordinary men and women who served their country in extraordinary ways.
The unsung stories of Australian and Allied merchant mariners, particularly during World War II, are a unique part of Australia’s wartime and maritime heritage.
It seems puzzling to have two different things commemorated on the same day - might not some people associated with one day or the other feel that their cause is belittled by being lumped in with another? - but then the attitude of the Rudd Government to all things military is a bit puzzling. Like, for example, the utterly pointless inquiry into the loss of HMAS Sydney, as if a bunch of lawyers with all their rigmarole can find the truth where military historians have failed. Vietnam veterans who remember the words ‘Agent Orange’ and ‘Justice Shepherd’ will tell you what they think of lawyers’ ability to understand what happens in wars.
As Juan Moment suggests in comments on yesterday’s post:
Makes you wonder where this need comes from to have more war memorial days. The timing is amazing, just when the Australian electorate is mulling over its long term commitment to the war in Afghanistan, we get a day to contemplate a heroic war some 60 years ago.
As journalists at The Australian and elsewhere know, many of us bloggerers think they are increasingly shit at their jobs.
I’ve had a quick google of the news on Senator Fielding’s vote against the luxury car tax. The tax would have applied to cars costing over roughly $57K. Senator him say:
“There’s no way that Family First can vote for a bill that’s going to put up a tax for farmers and tourism, that’s just crazy.
“They’re already doing it so tough at the moment.”
And in my trawl of the internet, I found no example of any journalist calling bullshit on this flagrant steaming pile of chewed up herbeage from a male cow’s arse.
If a farmer is using a car as a tool of the trade, (s)he is referring to the ute. A spanking new Hi-lux costs about $33K, surfers. It’s true that yer standard squatocracy Statesman costs just over $60K. Now you may say that I’ve been forced at professional gunpoint to read too many income tax decisions, and from the point of view of my mental health you’d be right, but I’d bet next year’s return that said sedan would not count as a work expense.
Honestly, journos, find a mirror. Is it really true that all any politician has to do to escape from you lot, and wreak senseless havoc with the elected government’s budget, is say either “peadophile” or “farmer”? Are follow up questions just too rude?
Disclosure: the blogger owns some acres of Australian grazing dirt. He soon plans to spend a few grand on some shouse 4th hand ute for to carry barbed wire and star pickets in. Oooh, he thinks, how about a free Statesman? Farmer. FARMER! Give me luxury car now!
Sarah Palin wants to protect her 17 year old daughter who’s five months pregnant.
The Palins, in a statement released by the McCain campaign, said Bristol “came to us with news that we as parents knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned” and that their daughter “has our unconditional love and support.”
“We ask the media to respect our daughter and Levi’s privacy as has always been the tradition of children of candidates,” their statement said.
Here’s Sarah privately allowing herself to be photographed with her family:
Here’s Sarah’s 17 year old daughter and her 18 year old boyfriend who ‘doesn’t want children’, according to his MySpace; they’re privately standing in the centre of this private photo that just happened to appear in the international media:
I mean of course Bristol and her bf would fly from Alaska to Minneapolis to meet her mum’s new boss … I mean kids do that kind of thing all the time, especially when their mum is trying to keep them out of the public spotlight.
And here’s presidential nominee McCain privately chatting to the expectant couple in a private photo which also somehow is available globally:
US politicians’ demands for privacy for their children really mean “We can use then as props in our campaigning as much as we like but don’t you dare say anything mean about them.”
At least in Australia, the pollies don’t generally use their families to get political advantage much and consequently a politician’s family life is pretty much off limits to media scrutiny. So far, at any rate.
Displaying her credentials in understanding America’s international challenges, Ms Palin introduced her son, Track, who stood in the crowd as his mother told delegates that he was due on September 11 to deploy to Iraq.
She went on to introduce her sons and daughters, all of whom were in the audience, and to indirectly answer the critics who have targeted the conservative, pro-life governor over the pregnancy of her unmarried teenage daughter.
“Our family has the same ups and downs as any other, the same challenges and the same joys,” she said.
She also introduced her “perfectly beautiful baby boy”, Trig, who has Down’s syndrome, pledging to be an advocate for families of special needs children in the White House.
“For years you’ve sought to make America a more welcoming place for your sons and daughters,” she said.
Seeking to further seal her family credentials, she introduced her husband Todd, saying she met him in high school. She won yet more applause by saying “he’s still my guy”.
All this on global television. Yep, she sure does value her family’s privacy.
Our prime minister apparently wants to follow in his predecessor’s footsteps and do everything he can to make Australia a more militaristic society, modelled perhaps on that outstanding global citizen the US of A. Why else would he be pushing this ridiculous effort to make 3 September ‘Battle for Australia Day’?
Australia’s pollies all seem to be overcome with this desire to be part of the big boys’ club. They thrust their way onto the global stage, yapping about how Australia too knows what it’s like to play at the big table. To hear some of them talk now you’d think Australia was pretty much single-handedly responsible for defeating Germany on the Western Front in WW1.
Did the USA suffer a terrorist attack in September 2001? Well dudes we can empathise because BALI WAS AUSTRALIA’S 9/11, OK? And now, Kevin’s reaching back in time to argue that the Brits might have had a Battle of Britain but WE HAD ONE TOO, OK? We had the ‘Battle for Australia’.
What a load of tripe. We know now that Australia was never under threat of invasion in WW2. What possible purpose is served by fabricating an ahistorical existential threat from 65 years ago except to encourage a generalised climate of fear in the population accompanied by a willingness to trust the government and the military to look after us?
Rudd talks about:
We commemorate a time when our nation itself was under attack.
We commemorate a time when a young nation found its very survival at risk.
This is pure boloney and Rudd must know it. Much as it pains the militarists to admit it, Australia’s role in the Pacific war was trivial. The conflict in New Guinea was a sideshow and the much-touted ‘Battle of Milne Bay’ was a skirmish in which only a handful of troops were engaged from either side. Australia’s main strategic concern - quite correctly - was to ensure the defence of the Australian continent by assembling an army at home with enough resources to support it. This was a unique and challenging task but it was not a ‘Battle for Australia’. Pretending that it was just invites derision from countries like the UK and Russia and China that really did have to fight for their national survival.
Rudd even goes on to say:
We know that some question whether there was indeed a Battle for Australia.
And yes, there’s fertile ground for historical debate on the views of Curtin and Churchill, the plans of the Japanese Imperial Army and the Imperial Navy, and what might have happened had the Japanese advance not been stopped at Milne Bay and Imita Ridge.
Kevin this is nonsense and if you sincerely believe it, you need new advisers. There is no ‘fertile ground for debate’ - the facts are well-known and uncontroversial. The Japanese couldn’t even invade Fiji for god’s sake, what chance did they have of occupying Australia? In the words of Tojo:
We never had enough troops to do so [invade Australia]. We had already far out-stretched our lines of communication. We did not have the armed strength or the supply facilities to mount such a terrific extension of our already over-strained and too thinly spread forces. We expected to occupy all New Guinea, to maintain Rabaul as a holding base, and to raid Northern Australia by air. But actual physical invasion—no, at no time.
Perhaps a key to Rudd’s motivation can be found in his reference to ‘The day when we together with our American ally began to turn the tide of the war in the Pacific.’ Perhaps this is all a bit of theatre to try to restore faith in the American alliance because, you know, they came to our rescue in ‘42.
If the people who lived through the Second World War had felt the circumstances warranted a special commemorative ‘Battle for Australia Day’, I’m sure they would have done something about it. Such days only have intrinsic value if they reflect the spontaneous feelings of those directly affected; for example, Anzac Day was officially named in 1916 just 12 months after the events it commemorates and Battle of Britain Day was formally proclaimed in 1943. Creating a special day 66 years after the events which it allegedly commemorates self-evidently has no connection with those events and instead, is a blatant attempt to get present-day political advantage from a confected narrative.
One of Howard’s many disagreeable qualities was the way he deliberately co-opted Gallipoli and the Anzacs into a manufactured political persona that used noble aspects of our history for tawdry political ends. If Rudd is setting out to do the same thing with World War 2 he is no better than Howard.
The Griffin Theatre Company in Sydney is experimenting with an interesting approach to promote their latest production by allowing readers of certain blogs, including this one, to win one of five double passes to the show.
The show is The Modern International Dead and they describe it thusly:
Against a backdrop of miraculous visions and terrible repercussions in Rwanda, secret facilities in Iraq, landmines in Cambodia and political cleansing in East Timor comes the extraordinary stories of some very unique Australians setting out to bring relief and assistance to a troubled world.
…One of the many characters played by a cast including Belinda McClory, Ian Meadows and Colin Moody is ROD BARTON, a specialist in Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), Australia’s former weapons inspector in Iraq and advisor to DR HANS BLIX at the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) until the outbreak of the second Gulf War in March 2003. His story revealed some of the secrets behind the fruitless search for Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. It is a gripping tale.
Given the content, using blogs like this for promotion is probably a pretty smart idea. Maybe they’ll try paid advertising next!
So here’s what you have to do:
Win a double pass to a preview of The Modern International Dead. Simply email info@griffintheatre.com.au now and quote ‘THE ROAD TO SURFDOM WIN PREVIEW TICKET’ to go into the draw. Valid for previews only and subject to availability.
Good luck, and if you go, tell us what you think of the play….
