Monday, 29 March 2004
Increasing the GST
It's a bit rich for Peter Costello to scare-monger about the risk that Labor would increase the rate of the GST -- he's doing it at the moment!
Textbooks currently attract an 8% subsidy, because the Government was forced to admit that putting a GST on learning was not the best idea.
Unfortunately, the Government has decided that the scheme is no longer worthwhile. The upshot? An 8.7% increase in the price of textbooks because of the GST.
So while Peter Costello rants about a hypothetical future increase in the scope of the GST, journalists should be asking him what he's going to do about a real, immediate tax rise.
Wear your colours on your sleeve
As the election approaches, it's time to turn your computer into an itty-bitty billboard. Click the link that matches your screen resolution, then right-click the image and choose "Set as wallpaper". (Mac users will need to Google for instructions because I'm not sure how their system works.)
ALP Logo
Size: 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768
Do it for the kids
Size: 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768
Protect our services
Size: 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768
Save Medicare
Save Angel
A colleague asked me to put this on my site:
Angel (the show, not the character) is better than Buffy, so do my friend a favour and help save her favourite TV show.
Saturday, 27 March 2004
Long John Kerry
Markos Zuniga has an interesting report from the US presidential campaign trail:
I was at the Unity Dinner in DC Thursday night, and I experienced something that only a blogger would write about:
John Kerry and I were urinal neighbors. And would you believe it, people wouldn't let the guy piss in peace. For my part, I kept my gaze firmly forward.
The fool! Now we'll never know whether the rumours are true!
Excellent Melbourne blogs
Wow.
Not only is Joseph Pearson one of the best writers around, he also has a knack for attracting similar talent.
Check out Peter's Kitty Kong Country and Vincent O'Kane's Hell's Paving Stones.
The Melbs.org collaborative blog is shaping up to be a good one.
Support Iraqi freedom: support Iraqi unions
Those of you who read my old blog might recall the American troops in Iraq closing down the headquarters of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, arresting its leaders and accusing them of involvement in terrorism. An interview with one of the arrested leaders raises some interesting questions as to the raid's intention:
Mr Turkey Al Lehabey, General Secretary of the Communication and Transport Union said: " ...Mr Kelly, the local military commander arrived and told us: 'Iraq has no sovereignty and no political parties or trade unions. We do not want you to organise in either the north or south transport stations.'
"He also said: 'You can organise only after June 2004, for now you have an American governor.' He returned after 4.00 p.m. with blankets and box of ready-made food that we could not eat. He then released four of us and told us that he was able to keep us in detention for six months but did not want to do so.
"We told him that he has no legal right to raid our offices or to arrest us. These actions contradict America's claims to respect and adhere to the international values of human rights and the US' claims to be building a democratic Iraq. He replied that his father was an American trade unionist."
[...]
Mr Hussein Alsudany said that the US local commander accused the IFTU of being "unhelpful in the re-organisation of the private transport sector."
The troops apparently acted on false information supplied by Iraqi transport business leaders who (for obvious reasons) wanted to disrupt the development of the Iraqi labour movement. The fact that the leaders were released without charge demonstrates that the claims made were false -- and, worse, the comments made by the force's commander suggest that they knew that in the first place.
Since then, the IFTU has been accepted by the Iraqi Governing Council as "the legitimate and legal representatives of the labour movement in Iraq", and it is recognised by such bodies as the ILO, the ICFTU, and the AFL-CIO. So, with that kind of support you'd expect things to be back to normal, wouldn't you?
Well, they're not. According to the latest Laborstart email:
During the raid, the troops sealed the building -- and today, more than 3 months later, the building is still sealed. The emerging democratic, independent trade union movement in Iraq is working without a headquarters, without office equipment, and without funds.
The US troops have accepted that IFTU is not involved in terrorism, and the Iraqi Governing Council has recognised the organisation's legitimacy, yet for some reason they are still denied access to their headquarters. Looks like the transport company bosses got what they wanted.
If you want to help IFTU, visit its site and make a donation.
Wednesday, 24 March 2004
Rape fodder
If, like me, you were beginning to suspect Germaine Greer had completely lost the plot, her latest column will confirm your suspicions. It's disgusting.
She calls the victims of sexual assault by elite sportsmen "rape fodder" and implies that they deserve what they get. The players don't rape the women, they "succumb to the groupies' onslaught" -- it's almost as if the victims are raping the perpetrators! You can't really blame the poor blokes anyway, because they're under pressure to perform or be dropped from the team.
Moreover, the only thing that has changed since the good old days when her father was involved, is that women are "stroppier" (an interesting way to describe someone who is complaining about being gang raped), and they're after the players' money.
Feminist my arse.
Tuesday, 23 March 2004
We eat babies
The Australian's Defrag column is always entertaining. Today it brings sad news.
Wired.com is reporting that the George Bush-Dick Cheney re-election campaign was quick to change a tool on its website that allowed users to insert their own slogan above a Bush-Cheney 04 logo and print a personalised campaign poster, after they discovered people were -- gasp! -- using it to make anti-Bush signs. If they couldn't see that coming, it's no wonder they couldn't find any WMDs.
I'm glad I got in early -- a Bush/Cheney "We Eat Babies" poster takes pride of place on my wall. The Wired article gives some other entertaining examples.
I found the poster generator after reading about the creative use of another Republican campaign tool -- one that's of greater consequence and more difficult to stop.
Monday, 22 March 2004
Clutching at straws
Can Tim Blair stoop any lower?
Here's his summary of the Perth anti-war protests (his emphasis):
Contributor J.F. Beck recommends, with good reason, that you read all the way through to the final line of this Perth Sunday Times report on protests in the the Western Australian capital:
The Perth peace rally on the Perth Esplanade turned briefly into a war of words when protesters turned up the heat on convicted racist Jack van Tongeren.
When one speaker realised Mr van Tongeren was present, she encouraged people to tell him to go home.
Almost the entire crowd turned and began chanting "Piss off Jack" and "Go home racist scum".
One protester approached Mr van Tongeren in front of the media and told him he was a nazi and had no place at a peace protest.
"You spread hatred and you have got no solidarity with the working man," the protester said.
Mr van Tongeren was released from prison in September 2002, after serving 12 years of an 18-year prison sentence for a race-hate campaign that included firebombing Chinese restaurants.
Asked why he would attend a peace rally, Mr van Tongeren told The Sunday Times he and the peace movement had a lot in common.
A racist nutbag turns up at a peace rally. The peace rally -- in no uncertain terms -- tells the racist nutbag he's not welcome. Tim Blair concludes that they have lots in common.
Jack van Tongeren hates the United Nations, supports the right to bear arms, believes in private property, is concerned about illegal immigration, dislikes judicial activists, and demands freedom of speech.
So does Tim Blair.
What does that prove? Jack shit.
I mean, guilt by association is dodgy enough, but when the rally loudly and clearly dissociates itself from van Tongeren, you've got nothing.
I don't agree with the protest's aims -- that's why I wasn't there -- but resorting to this sort of outrageous defamation is just pathetic.
Thursday, 18 March 2004
Evil shit
What happens when the Socialist Alliance does a deal with the Labor Right?
Evil shit, that's what.
You'll read about it soon. I won't be making any comments, but you should be able to guess where I stand on the issue.
Monday, 15 March 2004
Truly sickening
I'm absolutely appalled by what I'm reading about the Spanish election results. It's perhaps the worst -- certainly the most offensive -- case of sore loser syndrome I've ever seen.
There is no reason to think Al Qaeda committed the recent atrocity in order to secure a socialist (read: "third way") government. The conventional theory is that terrorist attacks drive voters to the security offered by incumbents and conservatives. If Al Qaeda gave a shit who ran Spain, the bombings make more sense as an indication of its support for Aznar. But they don't care, so the point is moot.
Failure to vote the approved warblogger ticket does not indicate support for terrorism. It is absolutely fucking disgraceful to suggest otherwise. I can't believe the utter contempt in which so many bloggers hold the Spanish people -- for exercising the democratic right those same bloggers profess to hold so dearly!
It's truly sickening. Fuck you all.
Bloggers' soccer showdown
A mate asked me to set up a blog called The Bob Katter Experience. I did so, but had no idea that it would be for a soccer team starring Giovanni Torre and Steve Edwards. I had even less of an idea that my own team, the People's Republic of Soccer, will be fronting up against them later in the year...
The real crisis of masculinity
In response to my last entry, Geoff Honnor asked, "If Eva's right and the 'Crisis in Masculinity' is illusory - if not an anti-feminist plot - why does Latham appear to have struck such a chord with it?" My response was that the problems faced by men are probably overstated, and that they certainly can't be blamed on women.
Thanks to Amanda, I can now let somebody far more eloquent explain it on my behalf. This was Michael Costello's column on 27 February this year:
There is a crisis of masculinity. But it is not the whingeing, self-pitying, maudlin caricature shoved at us consistently from the right-wing men's groups and conservative figures over the past decade.
The real crisis of masculinity is caused by the refusal of many men -- and, regrettably, some women -- to accept women's demands that they be treated equally at work, at home and at play, which they manifestly are not. During part of the 1960s and '70s, equal rights for women became an accepted part of public discourse. But with the counter-revolution of the culture wars of the '80s and '90s, men's troubles increasingly came to be depicted as the fault of the women's movement.
This is self-pitying nonsense. If you want to be a real man, be proud of the humanity common to men and women, fully equal in rights and responsibilities and fully equal in moral worth and capacity for achievement. Only when all men accept that -- and large numbers already do -- will there be no crisis of masculinity.
Sunday, 14 March 2004
Men and women
There was a good feminist column in today's Sydney Morning Herald; the Heckler piece by Eva Cox:
Just because most men are not mugs enough to take on underpaid, demanding jobs that require a willingness to engage emotionally and personally, we need to worry about The Crisis in Masculinity!
[...]
Let's ... look at the core of the problem. Jobs that are mainly feminised are paid less than the similar skill bases in masculinised areas. It's the gender thing, otherwise how do we justify paying child-care assistants less than car park attendants. Let's start giving respect and status to such jobs and affirming these by paying for them at rates that recognise their value.
We need to ensure the top jobs can be done by people who are also parents and citizens. Good executives should be judged on whether they can complete work within reasonable time frames, rather than assuming longer hours to be a sign of good workers.
Spot on.
Unfortunately, they had to balance it with Bettina Arndt's latest antifeminist rant. Women trick men into having children by pricking holes in condoms. Then they steal the children from their fathers. Naturally, the poor blokes are driven to suicide.
No mention of the countless women who are abandoned when they fall pregnant by heartless men, though. I wonder which happens more often?
Saturday, 13 March 2004
I feel dirty...
The Red Cross fundraiser last night was very successful. Here are some photos.
» Read on...
Friday, 12 March 2004
What the?
According to Angela Shanahan, feminists invented rape. That's got to be the weirdest and most misguided column I've read this year.
Wednesday, 10 March 2004
Women's pay is crap -- let's give men more money
I'm not sure about Howard's plan to amend the Sex Discrimination Act to allow male-only scholarships for teachers. The first thing you should do when trying to solve a problem is work out what's causing it -- we know what's causing this one, so why don't we fix it instead of fiddling with discrimination laws?
There was a time when most teachers were male. In those days, teaching was a well-paid and highly respected profession. As both the pay and the esteem in which teachers are held has eroded, so has the proportion of men in the job. Women are doing the job because men don't want to any more.
Last week we heard that the pay gap between men and women in Australia is still wide (and increasing). One of the reasons for this is that high-paying jobs are disproportionately held by men, while lower-paying jobs (like teaching) are disproportionately held by women. Men who are capable of teaching are also capable of other, better remunerated jobs -- so they take them. Although the same is true of women, some career paths are still blocked by the glass ceiling. Furthermore, the incentive for them to take another job is less significant, as they wouldn't be paid the same as men who entered that other field.
So if it is the poor pay and working conditions that are leading men to abandon teaching, the obvious solution is to increase the salary and improve the conditions of teachers. (Alternatively we could ensure that women have equal access to more lucrative careers, but that's a longer-term approach.) Why fiddle with the symptoms when we can attack the root cause?
Well, Andrew Norton argues that while we are addressing the underlying issues, we should not stop treating the symptoms. Even a minor improvement caused by such scholarships would be worthwhile. I can see his point.
On the other hand, if you think of such a scholarship as a form of remuneration, then the effect would be to pay men more for doing the same work as women -- the very practice that the Sex Discrimination Act is intended to stamp out! That's essentially the line taken by Pru Goward:
"If that is the way forward, then the Government should immediately introduce programs that pay a premium to women who enter Parliament or seek positions as executive board members, university professors, surgeons, engineers, senior military officers or judges, where women are still disadvantaged and are seriously under-represented," she said.
"Women and girls need role models, too."
Male-only teaching scholarships can also be distinguished from genuine affirmative action because the problem has arisen out of men's choice to do other, higher-paid jobs, and not because of discrimination against men. In this case, we're attempting to address systemic discrimination against women by offering men more money!
On that basis, I can't support the proposed changes.
A couple of little things probably helped tip me in that direction:
Howard is clearly using this as a wedge. It's too important for petty politics like that.
Howard has not spoken to his own Sex Discrimination Officer about the proposals. It's her job to oversee the act, he could have at least contacted her out of courtesy.
If he'd put forward this idea in good faith, instead of as a wedge to claw back some ground off Latham, I'd probably have been more open to supporting it.
(By the way, my brother's studying primary teaching at the moment.)
Important reminder - Bam benefit Friday night!
I've posted these details before, but they bear repeating now that the date is upon us:
Giovanni Torre's band aid project is off the ground:
What: Concert for Iran earthquake victims
When: Friday, 12 March, 8pm
Where: Hyde Park Hotel
Who: Adam Said Galore, Snowman, The Tigers, more
Why: Because the victims of the Bam earthquake need your help: "On December 26 2003, a major earthquake registering 6.3 on the Richter Scale hit Iran's south-eastern province of Kerman. The area most affected is the ancient city of Bam where 30,000 people are reported to have been killed, an estimated 30,000 injured and 75,000 left homeless. More than eighty five per cent of houses and buildings have been destroyed and are beyond repair."
The Hyde Park Hotel will provide the venue for free, the bands will provide the entertainment for free, and the organisers are setting the whole thing up for free. Every last cent of your ticket price will go to the Red Cross for the benefit of the earthquake victims.
If you live in Perth, you must attend.
If you maintain a blog, you must link to this post.
The people of Bam need our help.
If you're in Perth, PLEASE make an effort to come along. It's very important.
Tuesday, 9 March 2004
Racialised culture
Joseph Wakim makes an excellent point about the publicity surrounding various gang rapes:
Let us compare the publicity surrounding three "gang rape" crimes. With the Canterbury Bulldogs rugby league club, the main reference to culture has been to the "male pin-up" culture characterised by escalating claims of group sex, male bonding and rites of passage.
Even our Prime Minister has publicly defended the league's reputation, stressing that it is "quite unfair" on the players who have "not been accused of anything" to be subjected to these "generalisations": "I know a lot of people associated with rugby league and they are decent, upright citizens."
However, we saw no equivalent caution from our national leader against generalisations during the hysteria over Sydney's "Lebanese gang" rapes. Where was the "I know a lot of people from the Lebanese community and they are decent, upright citizens"?
If our knee-jerk reaction is to blame the ethnic culture for the crime rather than the criminal subculture, then it is written off as incurable because it is "in the blood".
Saying, as some people do, "I'm not criticising their race, I'm criticising their culture," does not necessarily get you off the hook. As George M Frederickson argues in his history of racism, "culture can be reified and essentialized to the point where it becomes the functional equivalent of race." That's how antisemitism became a form of racism. It certainly seems as if Islam is being treated the same way.
