Sorry but I’m not responsible ... about that

John Howard’s thinking is a little skewed if he thinks he can not give a sympathetic apology for the stolen generation for which he is not responsible but he can for an interest rate rise for which he is.

What is an apology? Firstly, all apologies do not actually express anything in the way that a statement like ‘it is raining’ does. There is no substantive statement which can be true or false contained within an apology, though it does connote something. It represents the performance of an action, and only if there is a social entity (a language group) who accepts its convention. Apologies are a kind of utterance which the philosopher of language J.L. Austin termed ‘performative statements’, which also include promises, another slippery area for Howard. Austin uses as an example of a performative a bride and groom saying ‘I do’ to issue as complete the action of marriage. Outside of its convention, the words ‘I do’ fail to actually state anything at all. As such, performed out of context or outside its social field, such a statement fails.

The accepted convention of an apology is that it marks the action of regret for something for which you are responsible. It is a statement of fact whether someone is responsible for, say six successive interest rate rises, and this is not dependant on the performance of an apology, but the apology can only be performed if there is something for which the agent feels remorse for. The apology is not a statement of guilt, but can only be performed where there is guilt.

The second condition for a performative: it must be sincere. If it is not, then it has not been realized and it fails. In the case of an apology, you must be sorry for the outcomes or performance of the action you are apologizing for or else it is not an apology.

So what is a symbolic apology? It is an apology where the apologizer takes symbolic responsibility in cases of indirect guilt. For example, a government apologizing for the actions of their constituents or for the actions of a former government. We accept a convention that if Howard apologized for the stolen generation, he is not personally responsible, and neither are most of those he is apologizing on behalf of. I need not spell out how Howard or myself are the inheritors of that guilt as that should be pretty straight forward, given we are Australians living under the Australian government, and not the victims of this injustice.

A sympathetic apology is simply not an apology at all, being instead an expression of sympathy and as such allows for misleading non-apologies to be abused by politicians. The word ‘sorry’ need not always be an apology, as context and convention is what determines the outcome of statements and may be included as part of an expression of sympathy. A sincere apology entails some level of sympathy or else there would not be regret. As such any true apology is a sympathetic apology.

Howard may well be sincere in his sympathy for the harm caused by interest rate rises, but he has not apologized for them. This is bit of a turkey slap as he is culpable for those rises, demonstrated by his slogan ‘Go for Growth’, tax cuts despite inflation concerns and that interest rates have risen considerably since 2002, and consistently about every 15 weeks for the last 2 years. As such Howard’s ‘sympathetic apology’ for the hurt caused by his inability to keep interest rates low is in fact a failed apology as he was not sincere in expressing remorse for something for which he is responsible when he said the words ‘I am sorry’. He breached the conventions of apologizing. Yet he is apparently sympathetic. Something seems a bit wrong here Mr Howard, and given this abuse of linguistic convention, surely he could be ‘sympathetic’ for other more grievous problems.

Warning: One in Five Australians is a Member of a Union

Now the government is trying to show it has a proportional number of unionists, so in their own bizarre way have been forced into ‘me tooism’, even though there is no policy actually being copied, and it was only an issue because they made it one first. Kind of like bagging the next big thing then having to jump on the fad for coolness reasons. Did any body really like those kids?

The witting and unwitting Liberal stooges on 2UE and 2GB have certainly been running the line that Tony Abbott and Brendan Nelson had been members of unions, revelations which have arisen in response to the clearly stupid branding of Julia Gillard as a communist by Peter Costello in his ‘fear unions’ tirade. Was he trying to temp them to uncover the information so the liberals could come to school with their yo-yo, which only a week ago was so derisively dismissed as for ‘losers’. I’m getting the feeling Costello was not popular at school. Incidentally Gillard is clearly a communist with hair like that.

Labor fired the bully a couple of days ago anyway, so unions are now all clean.

Several high ranking Liberals have been reported by callers to have been members of student unions. They are not exactly unions are they. Besides the Howard government has already busted up that self interested cartel. They wrecked up the joint real good. I wonder where our next Joe Hockey will come from when ‘student union president’ can not make its way onto resumes. As an exercise, imagine Joe Hockey, Student Union President and then wonder why he did he not become a union bully boy himself? He could have been a contender. Maybe that is where the loathing comes from … sleepless nights pining for a missed calling.

Meanwhile, the NSW government is highly likely going to privatize a portion of Sydney Ferries, in part to be able to deal with the MUA, also known as the really powerful union. The Federal Coalition has tried to bring the NSW Government into the election campaign, as being seen with Morris Iemma is problematic due to him acquiring a nasty taint of corruption and I have heard he reveals his true form in photographs and mirrors. When John Howard made a direct move to draw him in to join the game, Iemma simply declined. Did Howard think he was really that stupid?

Maybe now Howard will be asking Iemma to campaign with him instead, as those nasty unionists prepare a savage counter attack to the inquiry report into ferries when it is released next Wednesday. The Sydney Morning Herald reports it will certainly advise some level of privatization. This is in part to sidestep the impediment of union ties to politicians and previous attempts at reforming the ferry work culture. It does not play well into the Howard line that back to back Labor governments in Australia will lead to unions ruling for unions. The NSW branch will solve their union problem in a Howard friendly fashion. Now all Rudd needs is for the MUA to carry on for a bit and then whimper down in time for November 24, to be seen as bested by Premier Watkins.

Breaking Story Just In From the Bam! News Room Give or Take a Few Days

I guess I should note the election was called a few days back for November 24th.

Who Wants a Future When You Can Have the Illusion of More Money Now?

Apparently we have a problem with an aging population which will cripple the economy with pensions, tax free superannuation and their health care needs. The worst offenders are those aging public servants and politicians for whom the future fund was set up to avert catastrophe. Oh the outrage when Rudd suggested dipping into the future fund to fund telecommunications infrastructure.

Howard has said that we are scared to be successful. That this boom can go on as long as we as a country want it to.

What is being done with our Asian monty haul? Howard has proposed giving it back in tax cuts, which is close to setting it on fire. If Howard is elected, being the highly paid individual that I am, I will receive about $5 a week over the next three years on average from this plan. If interest rates go up due to this, which in the current climate would appear likely, then I am sure I would likely lose this short found gain in increasingly expensive rents if nothing else. If you had a family and house repayments, I think this might equate to going backwards.

This money might actually belong to our geriatric future Mr Howard, so those after the baby boomers might be able to have theirs with out having to carelessly unplug a life support machine or two.

Spend It Wisely

Howard and Costello’s tax cuts remind me of a television ad that played when I was about 15 in which a deathly withered geezer gives his grandson $6 and sagely advising ‘Spend it wisely’. The ad advised the best use of your easily won but hard to replace funds (your income being your miserly grandfather) for your two week school holidays was to go bumper bowling. Queue flashing lights and extreme zooming. $6 over two weeks, one day of bumper bowling. Bumper bowling is not really very fun, and if you went on the first day, well, it sucked to be you. Incidentally, at the time, $6 would have bought from the supermarket, though not the kiosk or servo, enough Paddlepops to have allowed one a day almost for the duration.

Setting aside the obvious problems of tax cuts economically with a booming economy and all, it would appear Howard has already sent out the reserves mistaking them for artillery? A $34b promise you would have thought would have been played at the opportune time; I doubt that time was the first day of the election. It is a long six week election, and longer if you have no finances. Howard has already spent most his money.

Slow News Day

The ABC spent the day spruiking the one event of the week really: the Chaser were arrested, and it airs tonight. Maybe the Chaser should include the ABC news team in its line up of villains who sell their own shows as news items alongside their arch-nemesis’ A Current Affair and Today Tonight. I guess the Footy Show broke the Andrew Johns scandal, so maybe they deserve their moment. But no where covered it as extensively as the New Manic Times, founded by one Andrew Firth. I want Media Watch to keep a close eye on that one.

Actually, they started to be reported as actual news somewhere near the end of the last season, which happened to be one which people are now agreeing with my initial judgment of it. It is the season when satire wafted out the window and all that was left was Chas leading guerrilla teams to harangue people on the street. People do not like to be annoyed and they do not like to be in unexpected situations they have no control over; that is what the Chaser set about doing. How do you think people will react if you take their near full beer away from them? No real surprises. Hopefully, the APEC stunt may signify a return to satire, or at least using their notoriety for good rather than as a license to behave badly in the interest in self promotion.

Now sadly I have made it into news. And at this point I must say Toyota is a sponsor of mine. Keep the dream alive. Oh god what have I become!

OPEC

Democracy has reached its zenith when a society can elect a retard.

Rainy APEC holiday

Those bastards thought of everything.

Why is APEC not being held in Canberra? APEC an exercise in arrogance

Given the claims of the racing industry for compensation appear not unreasonable and will likely be paid at least in part with the NSW government’s $4m emergency fund for the equine flu crisis, which has been indicated will be refilled as necessary, will those with lost income due to APEC be compensated? Starting Monday, the CBD has become like a ghost town (presumably too much fighting on the dance floor). Anecdotally those who tried to open on the Monday to test the waters for business that there is only police in the area. Consensus is that they will all have to close for the remainder of the period. Spare a thought for the fruit vendors and caféteers who will lose two weeks revenue and running costs. One CBD café owner said he makes around $5000 a day, which means he will be around $50,000 out of pocket for the summit. It seems a big price to pay for Howard’s ego and the reimbursement should come from federal coffers rather than the state.

The public have long been mildly resentful of Howard’s decision to live in Kirribilli House rather than the Lodge. It is not that most people blame him as I would rather live in Sydney than Canberra personally, if for no other reason than the views and climate. What is annoying is the cost at which he does so, and that he is the only prime minister to have felt the need to. Abusing it for Liberal fund raisers has not helped. Clearing Sydney’s CBD for what amounts to a private party for the over powered and his own personal aggrandizement kind of feels a little excessive, especially when, like Howard’s living arrangements, it should be in Canberra.

When Bob Hawke held the first APEC meeting in 1989, it was in Canberra and went smoothly. It may be said that it only hosted 12 leaders but the real reason is that Canberra is a city which was literally designed to accommodate such events. A single street could have been used in the political district of a city which is a series of satellite towns. The total disruption would have been virtually none as the satellites get on with their business in a state of near obliviousness to the event. The total cost would have been significantly less, especially for NSW. The security would have been far superior. I understand that Bush’s security is standard fare for him, except that he usually uses a helicopter in Washington rather than motorcade. Still, you wonder if the fence, exclusion zones, water cannon and lines of police would really have been needed had the venue not been so inappropriate. Who would protest in Canberra? A few might travel there, but most of us have to work or at least have something better to do with our time than travel to Canberra.

There has been the curious excess of Mr Bush’s motorcade which traveling little more than 100 meters from the InterContinental Hotel to Howard’s office has meant the stretch of cars involved in the operation have actually spanned a greater distance than that traveled. The early arrival of the US President has proven to be as much as anything a demonstration of chummery between Howard and Bush. For a man chasing another term in government, hosting your buddy who is seen as the worst president in American history, who is clearly a cocaine and alcohol damaged imbecile and widely regarded as a war criminal, it does not seem like a particularly intelligent move. I think Prime Ministerial excess and arrogance will be the overriding message that voters will take away from APEC.

Vindicating Rowan's Prejudice Against Customers

New research from the Queensland University of Technology has found there has been an increase in customer service staff that have been abused, spat on and received death threats.

Why do people assume that just because they have the money, the person on the other side of the counter is there as their servant? Customer service staff are rarely those who make the rules and tend not to be the beneficiaries of any sales made. Generally you get the service you ask for and you must always keep in mind that sometimes people have bad days or that their job sucks. Lastly, as a general rule, the customer is often an idiot and is often not right; a fair complaint is a fair complaint but customer staff rarely owe you anything unless you give them reason to or a mistake was made of sufficient magnitude to warrant a complaint. Your money is not that reason and the mistake was doing exactly as you desired.

The Kiddies Protest APEC

From what I could tell, many of the protesters at yesterday’s ‘kiddies’ protest or school walk out were young ethnic males. Those who asked me the way to Bellmore Park were all of Lebanese or similar Middle Eastern dissent. I feel this may be a little telling. They managed only about 250 people which although somewhat pathetic it was almost miraculous given the threats against protesters in general and the concern over high schoolers being involved.

It was a Resistance initiated protest which meant their taint of corruption was to tarnish it in most parents’ eyes at the outset. For those talk back hosts right of, well right, the concern is those ideologues lurking in schools also known as teachers. How many of them have been pushing students to partake in the educational strike? I suspect not many, though some may encourage students to stand by their opinions and may not actively censure pro-protest sentiment. The Education Department said any student not at school without a permission note to protest from their parents would be considered a truant. They worked with police to enforce the notes, with those found without permission being returned to their school or their parents as truancy is not a crime as such. From my schooling experience, being noted as a truant was not exactly traumatic. Essentially it resulted in an extra day added to the unexplained absences tally on the report card, which basically indicated you were behaving your age. At worst it was a detention hour one afternoon. I wonder how many students were found without permission notes and returned to safety from the mob.

Politically school students are part of the disenfranchised, though they do have their future voting potential. As it stands, they are old enough to form political opinions, but too young to vote. Protest then appears to be their only real option for a voice, even if purely symbolic. It is one of the few democratic rights offered to the under aged.

Back to those denizens known as Resistance: they had contact details on the flyers they distributed so students and parents could find out more about the demonstration. Those parents who rang were asked to join their children as ‘peace monitors’ or parental supervision to ensure in a safe way that students behaved appropriately. What bastards! Why did I not hear anyone on 2GB mention this?

Why is John Howard so Concerned About Gap Years?

He will discuss a proposal with George Bush at APEC about the prospect of allowing Australian youths spend a gap year in the United States. This may be a way of getting some American training for the youth? Maybe its just he thinks it is every teenager’s dream. Eighteen to twenty four year olds like YouTube, Myspace and America. Howard, who is struggling with the demographic, has some sweet contacts which he is pulling for you to live the dream. I notice he now has a more respectable number of friends on his Myspace than the 8 he had last time I checked, but that was a while ago. Possibly his staff spent their time also creating friends accounts for him while they were editing Wikipedia.

The America deal does show that Howard is focusing in on the very American concept of a gap year. A few weeks back, he and Brendan Nelson proposed school leavers to spend their gap year in the military under a revamped version of the old ‘try before you buy’ push of the 90’s. Talk back callers in or formally of the Army said there is a culture within the army that treats even the reserves as well as teenage adventure campers with incredulity. The cost and effort to train someone for a year only is not effective at all, and really is not sufficient to make an impact on their leadership skills.

Oddly I do agree with the principal of school leavers not going straight to University. It has been something I have long felt would benefit universities with an extra year of maturity and the weeding effect time to think away from the pressure of teachers that the HSC is your ticket to university and life. Many of those students who really don’t belong their will find other avenues and those who do go to university will likely perform better. Still, I do not know if I advocate federally funded gap year programs. Why can’t they just get a job while partying hard and maybe traveling? Unless this is to help disadvantaged students then it seems a resource draining activity.

Personally I would like to see universities offer an introductory year that all potential students would be required to take. This will give them university rather than HSC levels of mathematics and statistics, logic and argumentation, history, philosophy, essay writing, and research skills, while allowing them to spend the year partying uni style. High intake and a nice cash earner for universities, but ultimately the weeding will begin during basic training.

Election Date Speculation

Obviously the election declaration is the week after APEC unless something goes wrong for Howard. The Liberals have been trying to advance purchase campaign advertising ahead of actually calling it, which I understand is not the convention. The time frame they were looking at was about two to three weeks time, which puts it straight after APEC. Labor tried to purchase advertising for the same period when they found out. Both were rebuffed. Labor has called for the Government to call it.

It makes sense as APEC should look good for Howard. I guess that is his strategy at least. I do not think aspirational targets are going to cut it on progress and everyone will know it. If he wants to win again he will have to use the opportunity to stage his own assassination attempt. He will become matyrly and that’s about all that can probably save him.

What will APEC achieve?

To me it feels a symbolic gesture given the host has gone into it with the agenda of ‘inspirational targets’. It is embarrassing to us as a nation to be represented as thinking that is actually something the world needs and that we think it actually means anything other than being a slogan. What does it mean? Whatever Howard wants it to mean; being Howard defined places it in common with non-core promises (also known as the promise which probably isn’t one).

Protests always follow Bush and they do get your city in the news. Most the world, including Americans these days will think more of us as a nation if we make protesting news. It will not be because of assassination. Why when he is just treading water until he will be unceremoniously voted off the island. Howard has not been assassinated to date, and he makes it reasonably possible every morning in his tracksuit. Again, most people would rather wait the two months rather than be incarcerated for the rest of their life to see him gone. Terrorism usually does not happen at such events because only an idiot would attack when they are expecting it. I believe the Pope has usually been pretty safe. We are actually protesting against its host if we chose to attend.

They don’t want protests. Why do they not want protests?

The police are basically saying stay home or you will be hit. I am intuiting that most people will stay home. They really do seem to mean it this time. The Labor state government has gone to a great effort to make John Howard look good to the world considering their obvious annoyance at having this duty thrust upon them.

I would like to see them purposefully be incompetent and throw it, let chaos reign. Howard will say, vote for me NSW, as those who claim to rule you are incompetent. We will say, we already knew that, and nothing will change in the polls. The fun bit is Howard will be embarrassed in front of Bush and the other 19 party goers as the parents come home early.

Why has Howard become obsessed with having parties at our expense? I do hope they visit a strip joint. It would actually make me feel a little better about the whole affair if there were photos of Howard dancing on the bar in his underpants with dignitaries chanting chug, chug, chug. He could be remembered in history as the man who had the best piss up in Australia, which is possibly kinder than it currently looks to do so, what with that failed pre-emptive war with a despotic country you bribed to take your wheat. It’s often the big things people remember.

Sadly they will not do so. Apparently Howard has trapped them on this as:

• They have the city of Sydney’s PR at stake. You must sell the brand; be taken seriously as a city for all those consumers of cities.
• The out going Ken Moroney exits the battle field of law enforcement a hero.
• The in coming Andrew Scipione wows the world with his feats of competence.
• Iemma apparently likes to be taken seriously on occasion, especially when the world is watching.

Are protestors really that bad for a city’s reputation? What is wrong with letting the world see we are democratic and free? Maybe they are concerned some of the other countries will think we are rubbing their noses in it. Protests have violence, but a prepared police should be able to handle what are usually isolated incidents. This is not only well prepared, it is actively menacing. There is a very very bad driving offence which is driving to menace. This is policing to menace. How will it look to the world? How will it look to us?

The police will be smacking some socialists. I suspect it will be the same pleasant feeling for most that we get when we see Vivien violently attacking Rick, the People’s Poet. This will play out like a professional wrestling bout, where the professional means it is all theatre as opposed amateur which means it is in the Olympics. The Good wrestler Captain Fuzz will be cheered for as he destroys the Evil wrestler El’Socialisto. No body likes Resistance and it is amazing how easily they can be used as a the face of terror? The people will clap and praise the police for ultimately suppressing free speech and Resistance will be heaped with the blame for justifying the police to do so. How dare they take away my democratic right to protest by provoking the police. I kind of feel we would not be allowed to protest even there were no Resistance. The Howards must keep up those appearances.

Sydney: the city where a man can not get a drink outside a strip club

What is this? New York? Clover appears to be out of the loop on APEC preparations, while she fights the good fight for nicer, more intimate boozerias. I’m not sure she will beat the might of the Hotel lobby, but I am personally tired of being rejected from every pub or club because I am not female enough nor clearly cashed up. This is exactly the kind of discrimination I hate the most. The kind against me. Until Clover’s triumph, men in the inner city will be forced to watch naked women and pay exorbitant money for drinks