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11th October 2004
AUSTRALIAN DIARY

- FEDERAL ELECTION 3 (SUMMARY) -

As predicted, the Democrats are almost certainly finished as an Australian political party.   They dropped to 1% of the national vote, and only have a couple of senators left over from the last half-senate election.

The trendy liberals moved to the Greens.
  As a consequence, Peter King in Wentworth was crushed..

The senate poll counting in Queensland has not finished yet, so Pauline Hanson has still got a chance.  The religious right has a party called "Family First" and it polled strongly.

The Labour Party (i.e. the "liberals") were massacred.  My own interpretation of this defeat for the Labour party was that leader Mark Latham projects the image of a thug.  Also showing as thugs are Liberal Party stars Tony Abbott (who did the job on Pauline Hanson) and (as a lowkey thug associated with the death of the Republican movement) newly elected representative Malcolm Turnbull.  Peter Costello or (to a lesser extent) Alexander Downer is looking like the best bet to follow Howard.

The real hurt to the Labour party, which as of today has not yet penetrated,
(liberal journalists are mostly a bit slow) is that the Liberal Nationals might now have control of the Senate.

The political selection process in Australia has security flaws.  When I went to vote, there were about five polling officials at the polling station, and that polling station was one of five for the electorate.  I was not required to provide identification.  I was provided with a voting form for the Reps and the Senate.  I was then marked off on a book that was exclusive to that official.  Theoretically, a stranger who knew my details could have voted 24 times, and that fact would only be discovered next day.  Which votes I had cast it would have been impossible to determine.

On the international stage the Howard win is seen as an affirmation of the Iraq invasion.  Locally most people see that the Iraq invasion was necessary, and that objections to the war are largely a non-event driven by members of the media who are still living in the Vietnam era.
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- MIDDLE EAST -

Afghanistan has held elections and observers are hailing them as "fairly democratic".  A BBC announcer misnamed them as introduction of "direct democracy".  This is the newspeak word for "representative democracy".  Liberal journalists of the world have fear and loathing of direct democracy (aka propositional legislation, California style) in which the people have the power to enact legislation, rather than having democratically appointing representatives enact all legislation.

The international terrorist movement seems to have been concentrating exclusively on Iraq.  That was a strategic mistake, because Afghanistan is now an example, (in a country demographically similar even if the population is less formally educated than in Iraq) of the fact that an overwhelming majority of Muslims actually want a democratic government.  Following that election I now believe that the elections in Iraq will be a resounding success.  This will occur because the Mullahs are politically aware.  They will see the writing on the wall, and will order their followers to marginalize terrorists.

The reason is, there is a basic contradiction in the Muslim religion.  On the one hand, Mahommed set the example for governance when he ruled from Medina as a theocratic dictator.  On the other, he did not specify how that theocratic leader was to be chosen. (Dispute on that question is the reason for the Shia-Sunni schism).  To further complicate issues, he was quite definite that Muslim should not fight with Muslim.  Apparently, however, that prohibition did not extend to political opponents, who were legitimate targets of assassination.

I suspect that the religious leaders who exercise power in Iraq might consider democracy as the answer, unless their political opponents assassinate them.  There is also the theological problem that the gift of representative democracy is being offered by the much reviled "Great Satan".


- US ELECTIONS -

From Australia, we do not get a real feel for how the US presidential election proceeds.  What is loud and clear is the fury of liberal journalists with ex-Australian publisher Rupert Murdoch.  (e.g. "Outfoxed").  Of course little coverage is given in the liberal press to the recent study that found that mainstream press opinion and news articles in the US are 80% favorable to the Democrats.  (Wonder what that ratio is in Europe?)

I recall a conversation I had with a Manhattan liberal.  I advised him from experience that Murdoch considered the "colour" of editorial comment (i.e. red-v-blue) to be one of the variables that sold papers.  For instance, if tits on page 3 (Mirror in London) sold newspapers, then Murdoch put tits on page 3.  If racial or right wing polemics sold papers, there would be racism or right wing polemics in the editorial and news articles.  "However" I recall saying to that Manhattan liberal, "a few weeks out from an election all that will change.  Whichever party he (Murdoch) wants to win will be promoted mercilessly."  From the shrieks of anger that are emanating from US media, I gather that the liberal rump of the US media is becoming aware of Rupert's tactics.  I gather that NEWS is supporting President Bush.

On the other hand, (we must consider moral relativism issues) it could be that NEWS has merely discovered the silent majority.  Perhaps the silent majority in the USA are sick of the liberal/democrat spin, and find that NEWS is an objective publisher of the facts, and that those facts expose liberal journalism for the slanted, biassed reporting that it is.  That theory would explain why NEWS corp. newspapers and TV are outselling the other media.

Personally I do not like either the liberals or the conservatives.  On my political agenda is the constitutional change that would allow the Federal government in Australia to be dismissed in the same way as was Governor Grey in California.  I would also prefer it if we the people of Australia (like those in California) could initiate and vote on legislation, without the need to lobby our elected representatives.

Fat chance.


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