Despite reports that oil continues to leak into the gulf at an alarming rate the continuing pressure on the stock of BP and the need for other oil companies to stay afloat has forced one man, a judge in the US, to overturn the Obama moratorium on new oil wells in the Gulf.
Oil companies say the government has not proven the need for a blanket ban on deep sea drilling and warn it will lead to major layoffs. Judge Feldman agreed and in his ruling on Tuesday sharply rebuked the U.S. government.
The downward pressure on BP’s stock price has now been linked to pensioner funds in the UK. So the global impact of our neverending thirst for stuff to put in our cars rewards the capitalists but punishes the workers potentially affected by the moratorium, undermines the financial security of retirees and still costs the earth.
Of course it is easy to suspect the motivation of a single judge delivering a decision that favours the oil companies despite the explicit wishes of the President. Even from Oz you can easily imagine various scenarios that would explain it. Local pressure to keep local businesses afloat, traditional distrust of the north by the south or straight out graft and corruption.
But there’s a far more troubling dimension to this news. It connects somewhat arbitrarily to the local mining reaction to the election of Julia Gillard as PM. Both outcomes seem to illustrate that public politics is subservient to other forces. Our democratically elected representatives can do no more than ask the capitalists to play along. When the capitalists decide not to play the game is up.
And just in case you thought there was some vestige of the socially progressive spirit alive in the US consider the news (both fair and balanced) from Fox News that in the US the minority Republican extreme right has somehow defeated an Obama bill that would extend unemployment benefits and provide financial assistance to the states to avert unemployment. The reason, government debt. Of course government expenditure on defence in the US has nothing what so ever to do with government debt, let alone the billions of dollars routinely handed private enterprises like Blackwater.
Oops just watched a trailer for Unrivalled…urgh what is going on with the world or am I just some latte drinking trendy overeducated and underpaid, indulging in some romantic sensibilities? Lordy lordy be.
It seems everywhere you have to have a position on something. Where do I stand on land rights for gay whales? Do I support the notional redistribution of capital into the hands of the rich at the expense of the useless layabouts bludging on the dole? What did Milton mean by promoting a straw man to finger Eve in the downfall of MAN? Jesus wept…a freakin decision please, just say where you stand!
Menzies took a stand 60 years ago against the evil communists who were in the words of the then Country Party like a poisonous snake, kill it before it kills you. Never mind the implications of outlawing a political party in a democratic state, some people are just too dangerous to let loose on the streets. 2001 and some bloody ideologically motivated nutbags fly a few planes into a few buildings and the whole world goes into shock therapy while governments aided and abetted by the media keen to broadcast a plethora of shocking images to the unsuspecting goes into legislative overdrive labelling any dissent no matter how trivial as an act of TERROR! For Fuck Sake! Get a grip a people.
What happens? The US leads a coalition of very unwilling in arms against a bunch of third world Arab states who happen to have the misfortune to be sitting on a large chunk of the known oil reserves and a whole shitload more people die, most of them innocent poor nationals of Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile private security multinationals collect a fuckin windfall in government money as they covertly roll out the next police state at home.
Here’s a bloody position for you dear reader. The acts of 9/11 are over. Sure they have echoed a few times around the world but they didn’t and don’t herald a new wave of popular armed insurrection that transcends national boundaries. In breaking news it appears that most people just want to eat sleep and be fuckin merry. The last ten years has handed back power to private interest after any social gains that might have occurred in the preceding 100 years. Wealth is increasingly disproportionate in its distribution, a very important consideration if you subscribe (as I do) to the belief that the usefulness of money is proportional to its distribution. In other words, money becomes more useful and powerful when it is not distributed evenly.
Oh and then there is the little matter of global warming. Remember a few years ago (I do, I went to Al’s little film one night in a George Street movie house)…global warming was going to get us and the culprit was humanity’s greedy consumption of all things carbon. The scientists, bless their little empirical socks, happen to by and large agree. The powers-that-be got a bit nervous, what if widespread populism actually motivated people to act? Well government can’t have people acting for themselves and the economy certainly wont put up with people absconding from their consumer responsibilities so let’s have a RECESSION and remind the wavering where their loyalties lie, with the economy!
So there. Three positions. The War on Terror is morally, legally, socially, ethically, emotionally completely WRONG! The re-distribution of wealth to the rich and the ongoing preoccupation with making and selling shit is utter FOLLY. And the mainstream political system in cahoots with big business should all be sent to Antarctica so they can bask in the new found warmth of a carbon enhanced globe. Cus sure as shit stinks, these things will bite us all on the bum one day, and probably sooner than later. Call me a greenie, a socialist, a lapsed hippy or whatever label comes with the position, frankly I don’t give a damn.
Oh and I think Milton was a closet misogynist who found it easier to attribute evil to women then admit it in himself.
Posted 3 months, 4 weeks ago at 12:37 pm. Add a comment
Wikileaks has just released this footage from a US Apache helicopter killing a group of civilians in Baghdad in 2007. The clip shows the crew strafing the men from the air and then returning to kill the occupants of a van attempting to collect the wounded.
The dead included two journalists from Reuters. In the aftermath of the incident, the New York Times reported:
The American military said in a statement late Thursday that 11 people had been killed: nine insurgents and two civilians…“There is no question that coalition forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force,” said Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, a spokesman for the multinational forces in Baghdad.
As the video shows, that’s entirely untrue. The helicopter crew rely exclusively on their own visual identification that the men have weapons, evidently mistaking camera equipment for a RPG. On that basis, they open fire, even though the group is walking down a city street.
How to you defeat an idea? Shall we put two ideas in a ring together and see which one is victorious after a number of rounds? The two ideas can slug it out for the amusement of punters and the financial benefit of the promoter.
But the metaphor is inadequate since a defeated idea can simply go away to lick its wounds and come back another day. No, defeating an idea is not that easy, if it was a lot of human history might never have happened.
Carl’s article is the war on terror Version 2. The enemy is now within, no one can be trusted. Who is thinking what ideas? Perhaps there is a terrorist in the minds of people already, maybe our teaching system is exposing children to the risk of an unwanted idea. And how shall we defeat these ideas? With money and public policy?
Part of the liberal western tradition is founded on plurality of free ideas as opposed to say a more doctrinarian approach. Supposedly the liberal approach to ideas creates a more flexible and more durable society which is evidenced by the dominance of the west so it is strange to see anyone in the west advocating a more tyrannical approach to what can be thought. Frankly it seems to indicate a faltering of the western liberal tradition to be discussing how to kill any idea.
In the contest of ideas it isn’t the worst ideas that are killed off, rather it is that better ideas prosper. The failure of the war on terror and what could become the war on ideas is they have not defeated bad ideas with better ones. The extreme questions the terrorist have posed to the west have not been answered with superior ideas and until they are, the idea of terrorism and its actions will continue to prosper. Spending money and devising policy might be a response but it’s never going to address the heart of the matter.
Oh what a feeling! Planet Janet has announced her departure from the board of the ABC and I would personally like congratulate her on her worthy contributions and selfless devotion to the difficult task of ridding the ABC of
the progressive predilection for emotion over reason and stealth over honesty.
Sure it was difficult for the only woman on the board to make her demure little voice heard above the brutish din of male blokeyness but she discharged her duties with a certain panache and single mindedness which has prompted certain emotional and stealthy progressives to label her as the Planet. As in Planet Janet, the one and only. Terribly unkind since just a quick look at her recent blog entries reveals how wide of the mark her critics are.
Only last week Janet alerted us to the Hoax of the Century (that’s the threat of rising sea levels due to global warming), then the week before she exposed the Copehagen Plot to impose a new world order by stealth under the guise of fighting climate change. Fascinating reading. Clearly Janet is committed to exposing the truth and questioning the dominant orthodoxy even if she bases her latest border protection argument on a highly questionable newspoll result. Still it’s useful to have my thoughts on the plight of refugees arriving by leaky boats framed by Janet’s nationalistic concern for border security.
Which touches on my greatest reservation with Janet for it seems that all of the truth in Janet’s world is conveniently located in places normally associated with the right wing big end of town. She likes to refer to the Australian people but it’s very hard to see her connection with the ordinary person in the street when she moves in such illustrious company.
So sorry to see you go Janet, but I wonder, does this mean that your picture will no longer adorn the office wall of the ABC’s 730 Report bureau in Parliament House?
Must have really got up the old fart, there’s Pilger basking in the glory at the Sydney Opera House while receiving his Sydney Peace Prize (now’s there’s an idea, just as well they asked a few aborigines along to make it look good) and poor old Gerard fuming quietly on the dunny at home. Even Rupert generously let us know about it on his Public Service TV channel (which is free, but only if you pay for Fox so go figure how that’s a public service) and the NEWSPAPERS (the source of all news according to Rupes) all gave John Pilger’s address a bit of space so I guess it’s news except unfortunately its not. So while I remain a fan of John’s writings and opinions I am saddened by his move to London all those years ago which unfortunately tends to provide sad little creatures like Gerard with ammunition to attack John rather than respond to his legitimate criticism of Australia and our aboriginal heritage.
However if Pilger’s point of view is now more that of an honoured expatriate then Gerard Henderson’s snide little rant demonstrates just how huge the gulf is between a man who speaks truly and a sad little caricature whose only talent is his slimy ability to propagate the views of the rich and powerful. Gerard Henderson should crawl back under the turd he sleeps under and await his next culture cleaning assignment. Better still, given Gerard’s fanatical support for the war in Afghanistan, I guess a man as interested as he is in the situation should probably catch the first available plane to Kabul and STAY THERE!
Hail John Pilger.
John Pilger at Brisbane's Customs House, photo by Rachel Cobcroft
John Pilger, mobbed as if a pop star at an anti-war demo, Hyde Park, London October 2005 Photo - Gareth Harper, used with permission.
Sebastian Kaempf talked about the propaganda battle as another front in the “war against terrorism” at the War2.0 conference a few weeks ago. Here’s another example.
Hugh White talked about new media from a long term historical perspective, questioning whether “new media” is really a major gamechanger when it comes to prosecuting war. On feature that emerged in Hugh’s short talk that is overlooked in the new media landscape is the role of broadcast mass media and the difference between what’s knowable from available sources of information and what’s inescapable.
This ties into a similar difference between active and passive media consumption. In an active mode, a person might seek out information or data to fit a certain parameter. In this mode data is selected or discarded according to its relevance to the task at hand. Perhaps someone is looking for dinner recipe or doing research on a school project.
In the passive mode, our criticality is less active. Browsing YouTube is an obvious example, but so too might be social networking via Facebook where there is no specific agenda directing the use of the media. TV is of course another such example.
So (according to Hugh) what’s inescapable in terms of public knowledge still carries far more weight in political terms than the simple fact that some knowledge might exist. This idea seems to have some merit in terms of common sense because while we might indeed be able to find out things about the war in Afghanistan that aren’t necessarily on the front page of a newspaper or in a TV bulletin, unless we know the information is available, we are unlikely to search it out.
Of course obscurity is no guarantee that information or data that might have serious political information will always remain virtually unknown but it does raise the question of just who will take on the role of informing the public when the existing authoritative sources collapse. And in such a void, how will the public be able to make informed choices about the truth of any such information. Is viral marketing (or similar) the answer?
In discussing the role of the media generally with regard to war and the potential of media to exert influence over the political agenda, Sebastian Kaempf explored the symbolic representation of war in the media with a particular focus on the US military’s role in the the battle of ideologies.
With particular regard to “the war on terror”, he described the Pentagon’s media campaign as “perception management” striving to portray Iraq and Afghanistan as “costless” wars which avoid spilling blood, are humane and surgical, and only involve killing the “other”. Al Qaeda and the Taliban on the other hand avoid a direct confrontation with the US and its allies, preferring instead to engage in a media war where they seek to counter the information agenda of the Pentagon with such deliberately provocative images such as the beheading of captives and the aftermath of US bombings thus effectively putting bloody death back into the US public sphere.
PART 3
Two journalists made interesting presentations, one from Paris via Skype which underlined the web2.0 twist to the conference. Not only was Sophie McNeil about 10 hours behind, she was also jet lagged following her sudden relocation to Paris. Sophie’s skype presentation was at times marred by the technology but despite the technical glitches Sophie manage to convey some of the issues confronting a video-journalist in areas of armed conflict. She described her documentary style as observational, implying perhaps less interaction with her environments. This more passive approach may well be due to some of the constraints imposed by the multi-disciplinary roles a modern VJ must perform however it is seems reasonable to point out that in most cases she is probably assisted by some sort of local handler who speaks the language and allows her to acquire her material without the minute by minute journalistic intervention that might otherwise take place.
Sophie’s ideas about the need to balance embedded sources with on the ground investigative material is obvious and it begs the question why so few of her colleagues fail to pursue such an obvious line of inquiry. She also made a good point about the advantage organisations such as Al Jazeera derive from their embrace of alternative news sources, such as mobile phone material. This point was also mentioned by Paul McGeough who observed that mobile phones are often the first source of information available to a journalist in war zones.
However, the technology that powers almost instant worldwide communications for journalists, drives their impressive acquisition tools and enables local users to collect uncensored media also exposes the people in any subsequent media story to possible repercussions at home, a point Sophie was keen to emphasise. Given all the pressure and stress that a video journalist has to operate under in a war zone, it seems hard to imagine them doing the same job for thirty years.
Paul McGeough, a five time Walkley award winner and former editor of the SMH spoke passionately about the demise of quality journalism which he acknowledged is partially self inflicted. His address echoed the sentiments Andrew Keene with concerns about accuracy, context and historical perspective that come with the Web2.0 version of news. In retrospect it is easy to see the missteps that have created the current problems for newspapers, but the future has now arrived. Despite the problems plaguing old media players like newspapers, Paul’s observations about the need to physically bear witness as a basic requirement for journalism continues to resonate. Adopting new media platforms ( as exemplified by Sophie) is surely a requisite part of that notion.
As with other similar debates about the future of journalism, it is sometimes hard to see how the traditions of truth telling with the craft of building narratives and representing stories from areas of conflict can survive in the new media landscape but perhaps it is just a simple matter of believing that such things are too important to disappear, so a way must emerge.
A final thought or two
In the context of war, conflict is driven as much by ideology as anything else. The new information age creates an additional front for players to contest. Historically the relationship of the mass media and its impact on war has changed over time. In some instances the power of the press has been beyond the control of the state but in the modern age, not only is the public media space a battleground for competing players seeking to undermine the “message” of the other, it is also the case that some of the new Web2.0 media tools subvert the capacity of players to control the message in the first place.
The decline of American economic power linked to the current global recession was implicitly acknowledged by the World Bank president Robert Zoellick. “One of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed economic power relations,” he said in Istanbul ahead of meetings this week of the IMF and World Bank.
Hugh White talked about new media from a long term historical perspective, questioning whether “new media” is really a major gamechanger when it comes to prosecuting war. On feature that emerged in Hugh’s short talk that is overlooked in the new media landscape is the role of broadcast mass media and the difference between what’s knowable from available sources of information and what’s inescapable. 
In discussing the role of the media generally with regard to war and the potential of media to exert influence over the political agenda, Sebastian Kaempf explored the symbolic representation of war in the media with a particular focus on the US military’s role in the the battle of ideologies. 
Sophie’s skype presentation was at times marred by the technology but despite the technical glitches Sophie manage to convey some of the issues confronting a video-journalist in areas of armed conflict. She described her documentary style as observational, implying perhaps less interaction with her environments. This more passive approach may well be due to some of the constraints imposed by the multi-disciplinary roles a modern VJ must perform however it is seems reasonable to point out that in most cases she is probably assisted by some sort of local handler who speaks the language and allows her to acquire her material without the minute by minute journalistic intervention that might otherwise take place.
Despite the problems plaguing old media players like newspapers, Paul’s observations about the need to physically bear witness as a basic requirement for journalism continues to resonate. Adopting new media platforms ( as exemplified by Sophie) is surely a requisite part of that notion. 
