Robert Mann has written about K Rudd’s essay here - Neo-Liberal Meltdown | The Monthly
What is rather fascinating is how he devotes over half of his article listing the feeble and predictable responses by the the neocon commentariat. The responses of Turnbull,Abbott and Costello (such a nice trio) and their cheersquad of Janet Albrechtsen, Paul Kelly and Piers Ackerman are rooted in denial. They are still wandering around believing themselves to be the Australian political masterclass. But as every day brings fresh news of more large scale job losses and the so-called healthy Australian economy unravels their response is likely to be just as irrelevant as K Rudd’s.
Professor Mann has correctly observed the rather depressing and obvious parallels between now and the 1929 stock market crash, the resulting depression and war that followed. He has also astutely given voice to suspicion in many green minds that the financial crisis will be used to justify complete inaction on a potentially much bigger problem, global warming. But for the life of me I still think the article lacks any substantive direction. The markets collapsed because the greedy people got what they wanted. Now the rest of us pay thru taxes/unemployment/poverty etc etc. Meanwhile the world cooks. Rudd and every government must know this part of the story line. Large scale social disruption will undermine social cohesion nationally and world wide.
Where do we go from here?
For what its worth I think the future direction is obvious. The biggest single threat to species survival is war and global warming. We can avoid the former by adopting a genuine committed strategy to repair the damage done to the planet and do so in a fair and equitable manner. It means continuing to relieve poverty where people are poor and disadvantaged. That in turn means returning some of the wealth that has been plundered by the west to sustain their lifestyle. It also means adopting energy and transport policies that place ecologically sustainability as their first priority. Acting on these things would take our minds off the great global financial crisis and put our so-called humanity to work instead.
