Bed Breakfast Podcasts

It?s a strange world out there. I?ve been watching the current political debate and the comings and goings in the ?big house? with interest. While the demise of the Democrats is now complete, what does lie in store for us? Perhaps the next bunch of ?fairies at the bottom of the garden? will do much better ?keeping the bastards honest? than being part of them. But that is not what interests me. The rise in utilitarian, populist politics is much more interesting. Over the weekend I read half a dozen articles on the current government from a range of authors, right, left and in between. All of them wrote from the same script. They concluded that Rudd is just as, if not more, of a populist than Howard and that he is yet to find his mojo. The last election, like most of the ones I can recall, were all about the ?what?s in it for me?? factor. In other words, who is going to do the most for ME! Higher wages, better hospitals, more schools, flatter roads, less tax, and the list goes on. So far as I can see, after all the bluster from all ruling parties so far in my life, things haven?t really got much better. Sure, I earn more and the income / cost ratio of many goods has reduced but what is the overall cost of these things ? to all of us? For instance, in our quest to source cheaper goods and at the same time enjoy higher wages, many of our manufacturing processes have been shipped off shore. I?ve just heard that another 500 Australians will loose their jobs because a tyre manufacturer will move their plant to somewhere with cheaper labour. For the 500 blue collar workers, who I assume quite a few are Labor voters, what do all the promises of the incumbent government now mean to them? This phenomenon is not, of course, exclusive to the Labor party. The Liberals promise petrol price cuts while at the same time saying they want to protect the environment. They are chasing our vote by hoping that we will weigh up the utility of being able to access cheap petrol against the harder to quantify benefits of being able to enjoy the amenity of the natural environment. Who among us really cares if Pacific islands are already sinking under the sea? Only a few really care and most of them live on those islands. Some here may be concerned that their investments in those places will, no doubt, be devalued. However, under a ?carbon trading scheme?, they may be compensated for their loss. On the matter of so called ?carbon trading?, we find again that this is being packaged as something we should accede to as being good for us. However, the very title suggests that it is something we should be very wary of. Why? Because the ?creation of a market? means there will be winners and losers and the losers are usually the vast majority of citizens who stand to gain no benefit. When taken apart the scheme is really about providing tax payer funded subsidies for highly polluting industries to continue to pollute. They buy a few ?credits?, someone plants some trees and hey presto, problem solved. I don?t think so. Utilitarian voting hinges on the politicians being able to spin the biggest issues in the smallest packages. That is, the spin doctors reduce complex and interlinking issues to the easily digested sound bite or media grab. In so doing they contribute to the dumbing down of the electorate. Like the priests of old, the politicians tell us that we should remain outside the ?holy of holies? and trust them to communicate with the ?gods? on our behalf. In order to make this work, the spin doctors spend large amounts of our money trying to find the best way to sell their ?message? back to us. They know that it?s too hard to try and connect with our intellects so they go for our gut and / or our heart. What they do is target our emotions then back that up with something more concrete. For instance, most people would love to see cuddly koalas remain untouched by climate change. They?re cute, constantly stoned and make us a fortune in tourist dollars. On the other hand, we need huge buses and private cars to drive the tourists to the koala park thus contributing to green house gasses. So, in a hierarchy of utility and populism, the cute, cuddly koalas are easier to sell than an esoteric concept such as ?green house gasses?. We are told we need tourist dollars and we need to cut emissions as well. There is a conflict between our heart and our head. We want both but ultimately one will have to go. In trying to get around this the spin doctors devise a campaign that says the koala park donates a small amount from each entry ticket to climate research. Ah! The good consumer says. I can drive to the park, eat the pre-packaged over processed food, enjoy the highly manicured, over watered garden, safe in the knowledge that two cents from my $25 entry fee went to save the whales or something. The heart (which enjoys the experience) is able to resolve the conflict with the head (how much will this cost) by diverting the intellect from examining the bigger picture (climate change and its impact on native wild life). In the battle for hearts and minds, the heart wins every time. Utilitarianism is all about cost benefit analysis. If I do X and it is good and costs me Y, which is bad, how bad or big will Y be and how will it impact of my enjoyment of X? According to the current politic this is a question best left to the high priests within the political and bureaucratic classes. We vote, in the end, for the one who offers us the best cost / benefit ratio. In other words, X will cost me but under A it will cost less than under B. Simple! It is a strange world out there. Collectively we seem to ignore threats to our own person in pursuit of intangibles such as ?wealth?, ?happiness? and ?prosperity?. These concepts are made material by their expression in goods and services, all of which cost something. The objective of a good politician is to maximise political appeal while minimising the perceived risk to the individual they are attempting appeal to. Sure, its not an exact science but it does seem to work. After all, I?m sure the 500 workers who are being sacked thought that no matter who governed, their jobs were safe. Like the cute, cuddly koala, perhaps one day we will have enclosures for that other endangered species, the Australian manufacturing worker. Problem is, by then there will be no petrol to put in the car or bus to take the tourists to see them.

Times are tough for ?dictators?, ?rogue states? and ?failing nations?. It seems like it is not a good thing to be the head of a country that happens to sit on top of huge oil or gas reserves. Saddam was just the first to go. We find, if we believe the mainstream media, that Iran is threatening everyone with ?nuclear? weapons, that Venezuela is being led by ?communists? and that Bolivia is being ruled by ?Soviet sympathisers? while little East Timor is about due for a ?regime change?. So what is it that links all these comparatively small and in many ways insignificant nations together? Other than their shared history of imperial colonialism and the pillaging of their wealth by foreigners ably abetted by foreign trained, domestic elites, it seems these countries share a certain attraction to the Euro and the socialist goals of equality and equity. The roll back began in mid 2000 when Saddam transferred payments for the ?oil for food? program to Euros from US dollars. William Clark, from the Global Research Centre in California, in a 2003 essay, wrote that the reason the US was going to war with Iraq was the ?administration's goal of preventing further [OPEC] momentum towards the Euro as an oil transaction currency standard.? Clare Foss, in her online Journal, noted that the Iraqi switch to the Euro had ?potentially perilous consequences for the US. ? If OPEC were to decide to accept Euros only for its oil, then American economic dominance would be over.? Saddam was not hated by the US administration for what he was doing to his own people. God knows, they had ignored that for years. What really got up their noses was that he changed the way his nation traded and seemed intent on hitching his caboose to the European currency. Indeed one of the first things the new US supported administration in Iraq did was enshrine the US dollar as the trading currency for all Iraqi foreign exchange transactions. Following hot on the heels of the great American Imperial push to secure a revenue stream from the Iraqi?s, Iran took the first steps, in 2004, to set up its own oil trading exchange (a bourse) based on the Euro. Dr. Elias Akleh, writing for the Arabic Media Internet Network, observed that, ?Iran does not pose a threat to the United State because of its nuclear projects, its WMD, or its support to "terrorists organizations" as the American administration is claiming, but in its attempt to re-shape the global economical (sic) system by converting it from a petrodollar to a petroeuro system. Such conversion is looked upon as a flagrant declaration of economical (sic) war against the US that would flatten the revenues of the American corporations and eventually might cause an economic collapse.? The strident rhetoric we have been hearing from the top US brass over the last two to three years about Iran?s threat is not, therefore, really based on any alleged ?threats? posed by non existent WMD?s or that nation?s plans to develop a domestic nuclear power industry. Rather it has been Iran?s audacity in proceeding with its plans to establish a new trading regime that would, effectively, lock the US out and thus prevent US multinationals from skimming the cream off Iran?s international oil trade. After four years of planning, set backs and political road blocks, the Iranian Euro bourse opened on the 17th February 2008. Writing in Petroleum World magazine, Gwynne Dyer notes ominously, ?The US government knows, and is deeply alarmed by the danger, that the dollar may be losing its status as the world's only reserve currency. Given the huge deficits that plague the US economy, the US dollar's value would collapse if other countries began to see it as just another currency, so the Euro must be prevented from emerging as an alternative reserve currency. In practice, that means the Iranian experiment with a Euro-denominated oil bourse must be stopped - and the only way to do that is to attack Iran.? While it is obvious that Iraq and Iran got into strife for not towing the US line, what about the rest of the region? Well, in a little reported retaliation for the US Senate?s blocking of a Dubai based company?s bid to buy into US ports in 2006, the United Arab Emirates told the US to go jump and that they would switch 10% of their $US23 billion reserves to Euros thus putting a huge dent in the US money markets. While all this is unfolding, south of the border, down Mexico way, some South American governments are also thinking of jumping the good ship US dollar. Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia have both made it clear that they want the OPEC nations to stop trading in dollars and convert to the Euro. They are also intent on reshaping their nations internal economies by renationalising foreign owned resource companies and not paying any compensation. Speaking at the Euro Summit in May 2006, Moralez told reporters that, ?For more than 500 years our natural resources have been pillaged and our primary goods exported. This has to be ended now.? And we wonder why the US is calling him and Chavez ?communists? and a ?danger? to the world. ?Whose world?? is a question well worth asking. Finally, we come to East Timor. As the poorest nation on earth with an average income of just over $1 a day, what threat could they pose and to whom? Quite simply, they have looked beyond Australia and the US because neither our country nor the US will assist them or support their development agenda. Rather, our governments are intent on bleeding them dry. The East Timorese government and its top leaders, all well known to us, made an interesting decision when they penned their independence charter back in 1998 and established the National Council of Timorese Resistance. This political arm of the resistance movement contained all the current players in the so called ?crisis? they and their people are now experiencing. What I have never heard reported was their stated aim to convert to the Euro as their trading currency in the sure knowledge that it would make investment in their nation more attractive to their Asian neighbours. What was little reported here in Australia was Mari Alkatiri?s international tour, in September 2005, to drum up Asian investment interest. Little was reported on the visits he made to 20 or more nations who have shown an interest in investing in East Timor?s on and off shore oil and gas fields. What is even worse in the eyes of the multinationals, who are screwing our government, is the East Timorese intention to use the wealth of their resources to ?alleviate poverty, create jobs and improve education? rather than reinvest it in their money making but wealth extracting schemes. Since then, we have seen some very interesting developments in Timor Lest? but more on this another time. Regime change for our impoverished northern neighbour will probably come but at the cost of more innocent lives. Like Iraq, Iran, Venezuela and Bolivia, East Timor will only become a failed state if we stand idly by and watch those who would rather it fail succeed in their quest. Do we have the same courage the East Timorese have to dream of a better, more just and equitable society or do we only care about those things that supposedly keep us safe from ?dictators?, ?rogue states? and ?failed nations?? The first option is a possibility; the second only perpetuates the lies.

As we read, hear and see more about how the Imperial adventure in the Middle East is going bottom up, a little known terrorist threat is looming on our back door. A bioterrorist threat more dangerous, destructive and devastating than anything seen before. This little discussed threat is, I?m sure, being monitored at the highest levels of our intelligence community and is receiving the just attention it deserves. It was only by luck (good or bad is yet to be determined) that I stumbled across this threat and I feel it is my patriotic duty to share it with you as it seems our lickspittle media and spineless politicians are unprepared to inform you. Just a couple of weekends ago my awareness was expanded by a short visit to the local shopping centre. Arriving there all looked fine to me. There was no outward signs of the turmoil being unleashed within the confines of this concrete, steel and glass bunker. As credit cards flashed, heels clicked and low level chatter or raucous laughter filled the cavernous trading halls, a little noticed group fanned out and infiltrated the cosmetics sections of the larger retailers. To the untrained eye and until that Saturday I must admit my eyes weren?t skilfully attuned to the vagaries of biological warfare, this group went largely unnoticed. Disguised as ordinary women, some rather plain looking, others more flamboyant, this group spread out, in what I came to perceive, as a loose insurgent formation. To quote Donald Rumsfeld, and to be truthful I had not realised how spot on his words were when I first heard them, ?As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know?. It started at the Este Lauder counter with something called ?Wicked Raspberry?. This small canister looked innocent enough to the untrained eye. As I said, at that time I too suffered from the myopia of ignorance and didn?t see the connections between a seemingly innocent act and the destructive intent of the terrorists among us. My lovely wife took the small canister and wiped it across her lips. This act, being one of the unknown knowns, I had seen repeated by her hundreds of times before. In fact she had a collection of these small canisters at home and from time to time would remove the protective cover and smear the contents on her lips, an act that had almost miraculous results. However, this day my lovely wife was to fall prey, perhaps becoming the first victim, to this new form of bioterrorism. For some time we browsed through the aisles visiting Givenchy, Helena Rubinstein, Elizabeth Arden, Nina Ricci, Chanel and Christian Dior. All of these companies I came to realise were developing, manufacturing and transporting potential weapons of mass destruction all over the world. Their brazen plan was to not try and hide their weapons of mass disfigurement but to put them on display in the highest profile locations they could. Not only that, it seems these makers of death had conscripted movie stars and celebrities to promote their wares. Just image the outcry if Tom Cruise and Angelina Jolie did an ad like this one. Tom, ?I like a women with Power?. Angelina (with rock music swelling under), ?Tom, you ain?t seen nothing yet?. Tom, ?Show me baby?. Angelina, ?Get on board and hold on?. Voice over girl, ?When good looks alone are not enough, use Power by Raytheon. Raytheon delivering death to those you hate most? (big rock music ending under vision of mushroom cloud fading into Tom and Angelina lying entwined on bed). No. These companies have a much more subtle plan. Rather than recruiting big, hairy faced men in scarves, these companies have trained operatives who look like, depending on their rank and experience, your mother or your sister or the girl all the boys wanted to ask out in year ten. These operatives are infected with Folliculitis or Herpes Simplex. They are trained to wander around the cosmetic aisles and lure the unsuspecting victim into a tryst with fate. Their plan, undiscussed in the media and to this day remaining undisclosed in the political argy bargy that passes as government, is to infect the women of Australia with diseases that render them unable to mingle with their families, friends or work colleagues. These bio terrorism operatives have one intent; to bring down our economy by preventing women from leaving their homes due to unsightly eruptions on and near their mouths. Causing blisters, erupting pustules and making women hide their faces from us, these diseases are potentially more debilitating for ?the economy? and ?our way of life? than such puny efforts as parcels full of talcum powder or crackers in the letter box. These diseases have the potential to bring down nations by preventing women from taking part in everyday life, from contributing to the development of society and being part of the wider effort to create a better home life environment. While our women spend their recreation time and their hard earned cash browsing through the great shopping halls of our multiplexes, when will the call go out that sharing lippy testers is a toxic hazard? When will the little fridge magnets arrive declaring, from a smiling Ray Martin face, that sharing lipstick testers is dangerous for your health? When will the retail chains be forced to the remove the displays, decontaminate their aisles and remove this bio hazard from the shelves of their stores? It started with one little stick of Wicked Raspberry but where will it end? I can?t answer that but what I do ask is that, as responsible Australians, men must rise up and take back what is rightfully ours. That is, our right to snog our lovely women folk when the mood is right. Surely, if our politicians want to protect us from the horrors of poxy mouths, they have the responsibility and duty to immediately pass a law outlawing the use of weapons of mass disfigurement and ensure they are banned. In closing I ask that you take care when traversing the now dangerous and booby trapped aisles of the major retail chains. Once you thought it was just your cash position that was under threat. Now we know it?s the faces of the women around us that are the target of unscrupulous vagabonds intent on disrupting our national way of life. So, next time you?re in the cosmetic department be on the look out for women acting suspiciously and do whatever you can to prevent the women you love from using the lippy testers. You never know where the lips of the previous user have been trained!

?All hail, the Left is dead!? Well at least according to the reality in which Ken Phillips of the Institute of Public Affairs exists. Ken is one of the Directors of this organisation and I guess he is far more qualified than me to make such a bold claim. In an article in the Business section of The Age a week or so ago, Ken wrote that, ?About six years ago some left thinkers in Labor made the shift to acceptance of market capitalism?. I won?t argue against the words he writes but I will take exception that this only happened six years ago. Ken obviously needs to bone up a little on his history and look back at the Hawke and Keating years. If he does he will recall that Hawke came out of the left and transmogrified into a full blown market capitalist cheer leader. I suggest that the present Prime Minister has always been a market fundamentalist and technocrat. Just as Hawke was welcomed as a saviour from the ?excesses? of the so called ?right?, I predict that within the next two years many will come to realise that Rudd will not only continue to embrace market capitalism but will give up even more of the working class ground to the real masters of the universe. So, not only does Ken need to ?get with the program? he also needs to drop the oh, so 20th century left / right rhetoric. I suggest that since at least the end of the 1970?s the arguments have not been about ?left and right? but about who holds the power to influence the material conditions of large groups of humankind. If the supposed ?left? leaning Tony Blair was content and without qualms, prepared to sanction and take part in the illegal invasion of a sovereign nation, then anything is possible. If one of the traits of the so called ?left? is a hankering for justice and human rights, then where do Blair?s actions regarding Iraq fit? Similarly, if Hawke was an old guard lefty, where does his central claim to fame in dismantling and destroying the solidarity of the union movement fit? Hawke?s Prime Ministership was almost solely focused on destroying the structures that united workers regardless, of their union affiliation and turning the union hierarchy into career chasing functionaries and thus bringing them ?into the fold?. Looking at the outcome of this today we find that the highly regarded waterfront worker, asbestos victim and anti Work Choices campaigner, Greg Combet, is happy to endorse the global war effort by opening the multinational arms manufacturer, Raytheon Australia?s, ?Engineering Centre of Excellence?. I would argue that many more people will die because of Raytheon?s ability to build even more powerful weapons than Combet?s principled stand against the excesses of ?the market? ever saved. No, Mr. Phillips, the left is not dead, just being abandoned by those who suddenly find that the attractions and baubles of power are far more enticing than spending your days in draughty caravans or hanging out with the dying and unemployed. The real issue is not ?left / right? but the demands of power and the want to influence. I?ve experienced this first hand. Many years ago a group of parents were fighting the education department over the closure of a specialist school program for our disabled kids. We fought hard, got great media coverage and were united, at least in the beginning. As time progressed parents were ?bought off? by the department. We had all agreed from the outset that our kids came first and we would always put them first. So when the department offered free transport, extra class room assistance and other incentives to parents, one by one they accepted and their forthright support fell away. Each time they would express their profound regret but said the offer was a once off, take it or leave it situation and they had to take it. Towards the end of the fight, when we were reduced to a rump, the department invited the remainder of us to a regional planning meeting to discuss our claims. I was the only one who went. I put our case but was, of course, out numbered. At the end of the meeting the Director offered me a coffee with him and a couple of other department heavies. What began as a general chat turned quite bizarre when they offered me the opportunity to take up a role on a department committee as a parent representative. I declined, said my goodbyes and left. Reflecting on this I realised that what they wanted me to experience was firstly, disenfranchisement from the ?movement? I was part of. Secondly, they wanted me to realise the futility of the struggle to prevent their ?expected outcome? from prevailing. Thirdly, they wanted to reinforce my feelings of isolation and powerlessness in the face of their plans and finally, they wanted to offer me a way out and an entrance ?into the fold?. They wanted to second me to their structures of power and influence. Rather than meeting around the kitchen table, I would experience air conditioned conference rooms. Rather that photocopying things myself, I could ask the committee secretariat to do that. Rather than be on the receiving end I could ?deliver high quality educational outcomes for our school communities?. Bollocks! Ken, the ?left? is not marching to the tune of the market at all. If it was, why all the concern over the Chavez and Morales governments in South America? If it was dead, why are hundreds of thousands still calling for the prosecution of Bush, Blair and Howard over their failed Iraq adventure? If it is, why are thousands still struggling for a fair go for carers? No Ken, the left is not dead, just abandoned by those who are willing to give up their role in the struggle and take up residence in the halls of power. Ken Phillips writes from the perspective of one who is so limited in his outlook that he believes his own propaganda. As one who has access to the ?levers of power? Ken finds that many who once challenged his world view are now greeting him as an equal. With that in mind I can understand why he would make such a bold statement. However, what his article really exposes is the disconnect between the ruling classes and the society they are trying to rule. The left is not dead, it is alive and thriving. It is not concerned with pursuing the trappings of power and prestige but in pursuing the concerns of those who the market devours as it attempts to sate its inexhaustible appetite for power. I?m sorry to tell you Ken that it?s not the left that is dead but the empty rhetoric you turn to in your need to reassure yourself and your peers that ?all is well? in the world. The bad news for you Ken, is that the left has moved on from aligning itself with particular party political ideological claims. After all, anyone who considers the Hawke, Keating and Rudd governments as ?left? is obviously just as out of touch with reality as you are.