Category: Politics

Left Wing rants, Andrew Wilkie for Bennelong, Down with Dubbya.

Maxine McKew for Bennelong?

A the last federal election, Andrew Wilkie stood for the Greens against John Howard for Bennelong – the electorate in which I currently reside.  Yes, “Our Mighty Leader” is our local member.

Less than an hour ago, Kevin Rudd announced that the Labour Party candidate for the next federal election would be Maxine McKew.

Since Andrew moved to Tassie (and is number 2 on the Greens senate ticket after Bob Brown), we don’t have a high profile local candidate to field in Bennelong.  But despite her affiliation with a party that deserted me years ago, Maxine will do quite nicely.  I won’t be voting for her, but I am happy to see that there is a mainstream candidate that will draw attention to Bennelong and make the campaign interesting.

Now, if you aren’t political, here are a few reasons why you should educate yourself a little bit about the Australian political system, and use your vote to make a difference this year.

1.  The planet is suffering, and if we don’t make some big changes NOW, there won’t be much of a future for TBA.

2.  Everyone has a vote, everyone has a voice.  You don’t have to agree with me politically, but I will respect your opinion as long as you have one.  Apathy is a luxury that only the upper classes can afford – caring for each other demands that me make informed decisions that consider the outcomes for those less fortunate than ourselves.

3.  The conservatives hold the balance of power in the senate.  Before this happened, the Greens were able to influence policy in some key areas.  Stem cell research, mandatory detention, and RU486 are just a few key issues that having one extra Green senator has afforded us.  Whatever happens in the lower house will make a difference – but the senate is key to maintaining an effective opposition in Australia.

If you think you could learn more about the Aussie political system, there is a great primer here.  It is written by Greens, so you may be skeptical – but I thought it was pretty good.  And honestly, my understanding of the whole disaster is pretty sketchy, but I do know that the more of us that understand fully the consequences of our vote, the better.

PS.  Until I met Mark, my contact with politicians was peripheral at best, and kinda creepy – I’ll tell you about it one day.  Since then, I’ve met three that have made a big impact on me.  Kerry, of course, I’m related to – so I have to say nice things.  But if you know me, you know I don’t pull punches, and I don’t pretend to like people just to play nice.  My brother’s ex-girlfriends can attest to that.  Kerry is a principled, intelligent, committed, and compassionate woman.  And she knits.  And Andrew Wilkie lost his job over a matter of principle.  He is a shining example of the good that a military career can bring out in a man, shiny shoes, an abhorrence of war, and a skill with people that makes you want to follow him.  And then there is Lee Rhiannon.  I don’t know Lee as well as Andrew and Kerry, but every time I have met her, I have been struck by her passion and commitment.  So my point is – if we could examine the reasons for people entering politics, what would we find?  Some for the glory, some for the money, some for the power.  And some who want to make the world a better place. Those are the ones worth voting for.

Another roadtrip

Today was a great day. It started off with some political bullshit. Hornsby Council had another by-election (after one in September last year), and since I knew the candidate to be a good bloke, with an outside chance of getting the job, I thought that it would be the decent thing to scramble out of bed at the crack of sparrows and spread the green word to the uneducated voting masses. Or hand out “How to Votes” at least.

At 10 am (after some malarky with the liberal candidate pretending to be an independent pretending to have environmental principles), Candi, Sally, Meg and Mandy arrived to ferry me off for yarny good time.

First stop, the Wool Inn at Penrith – I am sure Meg will have a great description (and pictures) of our adventures, because I forgot to take my camera out of the bag all day. I blame the drugs. I’ve been good with the painkillers, but today required some intervention. Sally, Mandy and Candi are, sadly, blogless.

I bought some Filatura di Crosa lace-weight in white (yes, I believe I will dye it in preparation for the arrival of my new book), a ball of Zara in a very intense teal/turquoise colour, and a variegated cotton that I found in a sale bin.

Then it was off to the Blue Mountains Knitters Guild meeting. I had never been to a guild meeting before, and it was educational, and inspirational to be in a room full of crafty women of all ages, skill levels, interests, styles, and degrees of yarn snobbery. I deliberately only mentioned women because David was the only man there. It was freaky. My knitting life is full of men – most weeks at the Courthouse we have more knitters with balls than knitters with boobs, so it was rather strange to be in such a large room, that was so overpoweringly female dominated.

Though it is definitely the case that a persons gender is the least interesting aspect of their knitting, it appears that I have taken for granted the rather special group that makes up the Courthouse. It never occurred to me that men were all that special – I thought they were just like people.

Australian Values

Did anyone else catch Jeff McMullen’s new show, Difference of Opinion last night?

I had a difference of opinion with one of the panelists, who said that migrants only had a hard time if they didn’t assimilate properly.  Her family were migrants, and because they learned English as soon as they could, she now has an Order of Australia.  Now, I am sure that learning English is a valuable skill for migrants.  But I am also sure that this crazy old bat hasn’t had her finger on the pulse of multicultural Australia since she “assimilated” in the 1950’s.  I think things have changed since then – I’m pretty sure there were no race riots in Cronulla in the 50’s.

One of the other panelists pointed out that the migrants felt excluded form beach culture, and Professor Helen Hughes OA replied, “don’t be silly, anyone can surf”, proving that she had her head up her own arse for the entire event.  She must have not read a single newspaper or watched television for months to be so bloody ignorant about a major blight on our idea of ourselves as an inclusive society.  If I, as a teenager from the suburbs felt excluded from beach culture when I was growing up, I dare say it would be a hell of a lot worse if you don’t look like a skippy, and worse still if you have a natural tan.  Or, god forbid, an accent.

And I won’t be using the word tolerant to describe my attitude to people from other cultures any more.  An audience member pointed out that expressing tolerance implied that there is something wrong.  I used to say that I could tolerate anything but intolerance, but I can see how bloody insulting “tolerance” and “acceptance” are in the face of difference. 

Discrimination has two dictionary meanings

1. to make a distinction in favor of or against a person or thing on the basis of the group, class, or category to which the person or thing belongs rather than according to actual merit; show partiality: The new law discriminates against foreigners. He discriminates in favor of his relatives.

2. to note or observe a difference; distinguish accurately: to discriminate between things.

So while it’s natural to observe differences, and it’s natural to favour people who look like us over people who don’t look like us, grown up people have to look beneath the skin and look at values.

Which is where the racists are having a field day in Australia at the moment.  Ask for a definition of Australian values, and you get a string of words like, mateship and a fair go.  For fucks sake.

What do you think are “Australian Values™”?  Beyond charring mammal flesh on an outdoor fire, drinking beer, getting sunburnt, playing cricket in summer and footy in winter, and calling everybody a poofter, I am not really sure.  And I don’t see how making migrants ascribe to these values makes them more valuable citizens.  And let’s face it, besides drinking beer, I’m a pretty sad excuse for an Aussie under that definition.

And for a lighthearted ending to this rant, visit The Department of Citizenship and Fair Dinkum Values.

I’m going back to bed, as soon as I finish coughing up this lung.

PS.  I once heard someone talking about racism, and specifically that we are all programmed as humans to protect and foster people that look like us.  Our immediate family first, then our extended family, then our community, and then our nation.  It’s been pointed out that most Scandinavian countries have generous social welfare schemes – this person conjectured that this is because all the welfare recipients look like the people who are contributing to the welfare system through taxes.  In America, white politicians use this to get re-elected on anti welfare platforms. No references, because I can’t remember who said it, what program they said it on, or even what radio station I heard it on, but I believe it was either Radio National or ABC local radio.  They tend to have more crazy intellectuals than rock stars…

Crazy news day…

Apparently, homosexuality can be cured.

In Washington, there is a law proposed that will require married couples to produce offspring within 3 years, or have the marriage annulled by the state.  Though it could be a hoax, it does underline the fundamentalist sentiment that is behind the ban on same sex unions.

And in Canberra, the powers that be have again shot down the latest attempt to get some legal recognition of same sex relationships.  I blame Mr Burns.  The man who said last week,  “some people handle detention better than others”.

And if you really want to hate the man a little more, read down the wikipedia entry to this.

In 2006, Philip Ruddock blocked a gay Australian man from marrying in Europe. Ruddock refused to grant a gay man living in the Netherlands a ‘Certificate of No Impediment’ document required by some European countries before marriage, to prove foreigners are in fact single. Ruddock decided that such documents were not to be released to gay and lesbians individuals intending to marry overseas [2]. The government made the statement, “”Following the advice of the Australian Attorney-General’s Department we herewith certify that Australian law does not allow the issue of a Certificate of No Impediment to Marriage to persons wishing to enter into a same-sex marriage.” He went on to say that he did not believe there was community support for same-sex marriage but has yet to put this belief to test.

Charming.  He’s not only preventing Australians from marrying in Australia, he’s preventing them from doing it anywhere he can.  And let’s not go into the David Hicks thing.

And some other news that is pretty obvious to me, but apparently new to a lot of people – Meat Consumption Creates More Greenhouse Gas Than Cars.  What really shocked me was the ignorance of the first commenter “these animals are bred for one reason, without that reason, they’re not of worth to us or to the environment“.  I wonder how he measures worth – and how much worth he has to the environment.

Little TBA is living in a crazy world.  Hopefully having a crazy aunt won’t be too much of a handicap.

A very social weekend

It was lovely to catch up with the SSK crowd, no pictures because I forgot to pull out the camera.  It was funny to chat comfortably with these lovely people, and recollect how overawed I was just a few short years ago when I first met Mary-Helen (amongst others) after reading her blog for a few months.  I was a very new knitter at that stage, and had only just started reading blogs, so it was an unusual thing to meet someone  that I felt like I knew from reading a blog, and yet she had no idea who I was.  Sydney has a relatively small knitting scene (compared to many cities in the US), and a few years ago it was even smaller, and so meeting M-H was a little bit like meeting Madonna, but with less paparazzi, and more DPN’s.

And the best bit?  Being told that my travel blogging brought some joy to people who have inspired me to blog.

Saturday evening Mark and I went to dinner at the home of Sally and her husband David.  We had such a thoroughly splendid time that we committed the unforgivable crime of being the guests that would not leave.  The conversation was so lively and interesting that it was past 1am when we finally left.  Sorry!

Sunday morning was passed over in favour of a lie in, after which we enjoyed Meg & Craig’s hospitality – and we got to meet the famous Pierre.  He’s smaller than the pictures suggest, but he’s every bit the chewer that Meg complains about.  Damned cute though!  Pictures, again, *WIGATI.

We had just over an hour at the Courthouse S’nB before we had to meet the Nettles for dinner in Newtown.  Kerry and her partner went to Palestine while Mark and I were in Vietnam, so we had dinner and a we slide show to see what she had been up to.  I’ve never had much of an understanding about Middle East politics, but if people could just be nice to each other, I’d be a lot happier. 

The cardi has grown to the end of the available yarn, and I see a trip to a yarn shop in my immediate future.  I also see a trip to medicare to get some money back, and some frugal living on the cards while we pay rego on René de Car, and get used to living on one income again.

And just when you thought it was safe to click on links to craft tutorials, someone had to do this.

*When I Get Around To It.

UN report on global warming

Aust ‘must adapt’ to global warming – ABC News Online

The study by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says the earth’s temperature could rise by up to four degrees Celsius by the end of the century and human activity is the highly probable cause.

Sheesh.  Really?  And I’ve been blaming those poor innocent penguins for all these years.