Nice to see a couple of former ALP heavyweights in the press today.
Stephen Loosely has joined the fray with a piece arguing that Gillard may be doing a Keating in fighting the hard policy yards, and so long as she gets the time she will get the outcome.
Meanwhile John Kerin has thrown his hands up in horror at the organisational state of the ALP.
It is hard not to see a link between the two. To fulfil Loosley's statement "Keating always observed accurately that good policy is good politics," the "good policy" that the PM wants to pursue needs to be told in a way that attracts dedicated support to the party.
The irregular arrivals (asylum seekers/boat people) issue is a good place to start. The policy the Government is currently pursuing aims to INCREASE the number of people we settle as refugees, while discouraging people from making a dangerous voyage.
This is the story that message that needs to be repeated (and maybe calling those arriving "irregular arrivals" might be a good place to start).
The PM should aim to win this on its merits, not just win it because it is a safe course between the extreme Left and extreme Right.
The other issue is the insane moment developing for the "new election" position. Paul Sheehan gives it a good run this morning. Interesting to note that this is a trucker initiative - and quite frankly we've had so many truckie protests over the years that no one will notice.
But more seriously, where did we get this idea that just because a Government mid-term becomes unpopular there should be an election? I've long been an advocate of annual elections and actually think they could work. But the current thinking is sheer lunacy.
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
Showing posts with label Sheehan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sheehan. Show all posts
Monday, August 15, 2011
Thursday, May 05, 2011
Confusing consequences with goals
The world's "great" religions need to be understood in the context in which they developed. It is useful to understand why they developed and survived - basically because they "worked". That is for another post.
But it is important to understand them to be able to engage in a useful discussion with them. All religions suffer from a problem that, while they all have evolved in many ways, at any point in time they are perceived to be wholly true. Even the Koran shows a progression in the sayings of the prophet as he progressed from little known seer to ruler. It is just harder to see because of the ordering of the sura by length.
Such an appreciation is not evident in the heading given to Paul Sheehan's column in the SMH today; Repressing women is sharia's raison d'etre. In fairness to Sheehan this heading is probably an editor's work - but it confuses the outcome "repression of women", as the cause.
But Sheehan himself comes close to that heading writing;
Because when you scrape away the layers of rhetoric of such jihadists, or those who rationalise their actions, it is evident their primary concern in seeking to impose strict sharia is to control and constrain women's freedom. This is the core cultural impact of sharia.
In this context, the whole concept of Islamic holy war has been in part an expression of sexual repression and sexual oppression.
Let's briefly consider polygamy and its one-sided nature. The Arab tribes that Mohammed coalesced were constantly engaged in war. The consequence of war is that there are lots of deaths. Men can breed many warriors, women only one at a time. It makes sense to send men to war and not women because men are expendable. Once you do so you will have a population imbalance and the process of breeding more warriors will more readily occur by having asymmetric polygamy.
But the law goes much further than this. Indeed one of the bases for the success of Islam was that it treated women better than the other social orders around it at the time. Families have responsibilities to the wives of their brothers and sons. No woman is left uncared for.
Sheehan is right, however, to note that in a modern society with greater life expectancy and not dominated by tribal war-fare that these practices are wrong. To do so requires an engagement with Islam that says "we respect your beliefs and your right to those beliefs, as we ask you to accept our beliefs. We have modified our cultural values as the world has developed around us and we encourage you to do the same."
We have plenty of evidence for how we have changed - the God of a twenty-first century Christian is not the God of Joshua who told him to exterminate all other people.
But equally we have parts of the twentieth century church that are equally repressive of women, as evidenced by the Papal view of contraception and the place of women in the Church.
Sheehan needs to be a little less shrill about Islam and more reflective about belief and culture.
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
But it is important to understand them to be able to engage in a useful discussion with them. All religions suffer from a problem that, while they all have evolved in many ways, at any point in time they are perceived to be wholly true. Even the Koran shows a progression in the sayings of the prophet as he progressed from little known seer to ruler. It is just harder to see because of the ordering of the sura by length.
Such an appreciation is not evident in the heading given to Paul Sheehan's column in the SMH today; Repressing women is sharia's raison d'etre. In fairness to Sheehan this heading is probably an editor's work - but it confuses the outcome "repression of women", as the cause.
But Sheehan himself comes close to that heading writing;
Because when you scrape away the layers of rhetoric of such jihadists, or those who rationalise their actions, it is evident their primary concern in seeking to impose strict sharia is to control and constrain women's freedom. This is the core cultural impact of sharia.
In this context, the whole concept of Islamic holy war has been in part an expression of sexual repression and sexual oppression.
Let's briefly consider polygamy and its one-sided nature. The Arab tribes that Mohammed coalesced were constantly engaged in war. The consequence of war is that there are lots of deaths. Men can breed many warriors, women only one at a time. It makes sense to send men to war and not women because men are expendable. Once you do so you will have a population imbalance and the process of breeding more warriors will more readily occur by having asymmetric polygamy.
But the law goes much further than this. Indeed one of the bases for the success of Islam was that it treated women better than the other social orders around it at the time. Families have responsibilities to the wives of their brothers and sons. No woman is left uncared for.
Sheehan is right, however, to note that in a modern society with greater life expectancy and not dominated by tribal war-fare that these practices are wrong. To do so requires an engagement with Islam that says "we respect your beliefs and your right to those beliefs, as we ask you to accept our beliefs. We have modified our cultural values as the world has developed around us and we encourage you to do the same."
We have plenty of evidence for how we have changed - the God of a twenty-first century Christian is not the God of Joshua who told him to exterminate all other people.
But equally we have parts of the twentieth century church that are equally repressive of women, as evidenced by the Papal view of contraception and the place of women in the Church.
Sheehan needs to be a little less shrill about Islam and more reflective about belief and culture.
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
Monday, April 11, 2011
Why does Sheehan bother
Paul Sheehan in today's SMH tried to write something withering about feminism.
One commenter on the article noted;
A derivative article, with ideas lifted from two recent articles in the "New Yorker" magazine on Betty Friedan and Christian Laboutin. You'll have to work harder, Mr. Sheehan. Some of us subscribe to the same sources you pinch your ideas from.
Sheehan himself gave his game away writing;
Academic feminism in the West has turned out to be little more than another flag of convenience for the left, in the way the Greens use environmentalism.
That is he was just trying to bluster about the left ... again.
Apart from some crazy polemic about the fact the fashion industry (continues) to exist the crux of the analysis seemed to be;
All the great recent advances made for women have been made by people - men and women working together. Most of the legislation that seeks to advance the progress of women has been passed by legislatures dominated by men. And no amount of government social engineering is going to stop women behaving badly to women, which happens all the time. Women bully women. Women block women in the workforce.
Of course all the great advances by women have included men in their making - heck it was men who had to vote to give women the vote! And whoever said feminism was about stopping women behaving badly to women? The "sisterhood" is actually a myth of male construction - denigration - to talk about feminism.
The debate is about power - not jobs, or careers or anything else. That's what makes feminism a left issue - it is a challenge to a pre-existing (and enduring) unequal power structure.
PS Why when the SMH publishes Henderson, Sheehan and Hartcher is it usually labelled a left publication?
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/scarlet-soles-are-a-red-rag-to-feminists-ideology-20110410-1d97i.html
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
One commenter on the article noted;
A derivative article, with ideas lifted from two recent articles in the "New Yorker" magazine on Betty Friedan and Christian Laboutin. You'll have to work harder, Mr. Sheehan. Some of us subscribe to the same sources you pinch your ideas from.
Sheehan himself gave his game away writing;
Academic feminism in the West has turned out to be little more than another flag of convenience for the left, in the way the Greens use environmentalism.
That is he was just trying to bluster about the left ... again.
Apart from some crazy polemic about the fact the fashion industry (continues) to exist the crux of the analysis seemed to be;
All the great recent advances made for women have been made by people - men and women working together. Most of the legislation that seeks to advance the progress of women has been passed by legislatures dominated by men. And no amount of government social engineering is going to stop women behaving badly to women, which happens all the time. Women bully women. Women block women in the workforce.
Of course all the great advances by women have included men in their making - heck it was men who had to vote to give women the vote! And whoever said feminism was about stopping women behaving badly to women? The "sisterhood" is actually a myth of male construction - denigration - to talk about feminism.
The debate is about power - not jobs, or careers or anything else. That's what makes feminism a left issue - it is a challenge to a pre-existing (and enduring) unequal power structure.
PS Why when the SMH publishes Henderson, Sheehan and Hartcher is it usually labelled a left publication?
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/scarlet-soles-are-a-red-rag-to-feminists-ideology-20110410-1d97i.html
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
Monday, January 06, 2003
It is an unfortunate fact that the use of statistics sometimes makes it very easy to reach broad conclusions supposedly based in fact.
Paul Sheehan Top marks so far to this cultural effect (SMH 30 December) has used some statistics on the place of birth of HSC candidates or their parents and the merit lists of those scoring over 90 to attempt to reach some conclusions about certain ethnic groupings.
Suffice to say the high proportion of Asian lineage leads Sheehan to conclude that these students and their families are somehow different and "neglect a comprehensive education". He also tries to compare this generation of migrants with those in the sixties, which he characterises as from Mediterranean (and Catholic?) tribes.
There are three relevant additional pieces of information. The first is that many of the migrants of earlier waves showed just as much
determination to "over achieve" as have many more recent arrivals - the case of the children of middle Eurpoean migrants of the sixties should not be forgotten.
Secondly, the criteria placed on intended migrants now is vastly different from the sixties. Now we expect education and economic
security. then we sought unskilled labourers. That their children might place a different emphasis on education would not be surpriseful.
And finally, the image of these new migrants as a group of swots who only study (or are coached) is easily overplayed. Go visit any of the schools mentioned - they are still the ones with the most vibrant array of extra-curricular activities and students engaged in sporting and cultural pursuits.
To suggest "you would have to be obtuse not to see the impact that the Chinese diaspora is going to have on this country" is a generalisation entirely unsupported by anything in the article. Even his own "statistics" include many non-Chinese nationalities. The only conclusion one can reach is that Australia is going to continue to benefit from the great cultural diversity that it, along with the US, has historically benefitted from - European, Chinese, Indian and African - Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist.
Paul Sheehan Top marks so far to this cultural effect (SMH 30 December) has used some statistics on the place of birth of HSC candidates or their parents and the merit lists of those scoring over 90 to attempt to reach some conclusions about certain ethnic groupings.
Suffice to say the high proportion of Asian lineage leads Sheehan to conclude that these students and their families are somehow different and "neglect a comprehensive education". He also tries to compare this generation of migrants with those in the sixties, which he characterises as from Mediterranean (and Catholic?) tribes.
There are three relevant additional pieces of information. The first is that many of the migrants of earlier waves showed just as much
determination to "over achieve" as have many more recent arrivals - the case of the children of middle Eurpoean migrants of the sixties should not be forgotten.
Secondly, the criteria placed on intended migrants now is vastly different from the sixties. Now we expect education and economic
security. then we sought unskilled labourers. That their children might place a different emphasis on education would not be surpriseful.
And finally, the image of these new migrants as a group of swots who only study (or are coached) is easily overplayed. Go visit any of the schools mentioned - they are still the ones with the most vibrant array of extra-curricular activities and students engaged in sporting and cultural pursuits.
To suggest "you would have to be obtuse not to see the impact that the Chinese diaspora is going to have on this country" is a generalisation entirely unsupported by anything in the article. Even his own "statistics" include many non-Chinese nationalities. The only conclusion one can reach is that Australia is going to continue to benefit from the great cultural diversity that it, along with the US, has historically benefitted from - European, Chinese, Indian and African - Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist.
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