GAY-MARRIAGE, POLITICS, BESTIALITY ... PICK THE ODD ONE OUT.

In Canberra, deep in the bowels of Parliament House, a slavering beast strains against its shackles and howls to be let loose.

            Wednesday morning, the early hours. Trembling hands fumble to undo chains while the creature is pinned against the wall with a pole extended through the bars. The wranglers withdraw behind the cell-door as the beast, free, bolts into the hallway. Disoriented in the strip-lighting’s glare, it slouches toward the Senate Chamber.

            At first nobody remarks its presence as unusual. Then the Gay-Marriage Bill is tabled for debate. The monster rears up on its hind legs and, spraying the chamber floor to warn-off interlopers, begins bellowing obscene non-sequiturs.

            You’d think that would be the end but, darting beneath Penny Wong’s swinging fist and bowling-over two elderly ushers, our startled golem flees the chamber and goes to ground. Its handlers find it later in the morning, hunched under a desk and jabbering incoherently down the telephone to ABC News Radio.

            Not even now, though, is it over. After tranquilising the brute with a blow-dart, the handlers peel off its Cory Bernardi mask and replace it with another ...

            Suitably subdued, shaky on its almost-human feet, it appears before the Canberra press-pack. Gripping the lectern with its claws, it wears the face of the Opposition Leader. Calm enough now to be embarrassed, it inveighs in half-sentences against “indiscipline” and “freelancing from the front bench”. It mutters about “political penance” for that greatest of sins – letting the people know what you really think before they’ve had a chance to elect you.

            Still not done, the monster stumbles into the House of Representatives and, disguised as the Opposition and half of the Government, pisses once again on the Gay-Marriage Bill.

            This is not the first time we’ve seen this abomination. It’s appeared to us before, in many guises, many masks. It was at the ALP National Conference when the Prime-Minister engineered a conscience-vote on a bill she knew wouldn’t survive the politics.

It was Kevin Rudd, grandly defining climate change as “the great moral challenge of our generation” then letting himself be talked out of acting on it by party hacks.

It was John Howard – and, let’s not forget, Bob Hawke – defining desperate refugees as “queue-jumpers”, and seeking no more constructive means of addressing the problem than locking them up.

It was on the front-lawn of Parliament with a thousand heads, waving signs that called our Prime-Minister – whomever that happens to be – “liar”, and “witch”.

 It rants and jabbers at us every day from talk-back radio and the tabloid press.

I’ve described a few of its faces, but its heart – its black, vicious, frightened little heart – belongs to us. We created this monster. We nurture and nourish it, and we let it loose now and then to wreak bloody mayhem.

We have it in us to be so much better. Our shadow isn’t our body. Despite a few appalling blunders, our history is largely one of a people striving for a society that is free, egalitarian, compassionate, and open to any who wish to be a part of it.

It’s not too late for us. If we keep in mind those ideals – that courage we trumpet. If we just think a little before we act or open our mouths – especially before we vote – we can let the beast wither and die, unlamented, in its cell beneath our Parliament.

This won’t happen by accident.

THEY WOULDN'T ... WOULD THEY? (or "HISTORY NEVER REPEATS")

The violent protests sweeping the Middle-East in recent days are so oddly motivated, and so opportunely timed, as to raise a serious question or two.

While “mainstream” Islam backpedals from the attacks, and citizens in Benghazi line the streets holding signs of mourning for murdered US Ambassador Stevens, a radical fringe has seized on a laughably flimsy pretext to whip-up anti-western feeling. The questions surround the timing: the anniversary of September 11^th; and just as President Obama opened up a razor-thin lead in the polls.

Until now, I’ve been dismissive of comparisons between this year’s election and the one in 1980. For a start, Obama hasn’t ever made Jimmy Carter’s big mistake: honestly telling Americans that they might have to adjust their expectations. Most importantly, Mitt Romney is, quite simply, no Ronald Reagan.

Last week’s events, however, evoke an uncanny parallel with the embassy attack and hostage crisis in Iran while Carter was trying to get re-elected. In 1980 Reagan’s backers were able to portray Carter as weak on foreign policy, while the Gipper himself held aloof and hammered the President on the economy (these were the days before a candidate had to look into the camera and approve campaign ads).

The results were: a Reagan victory; the arming and financing of Saddam Hussein to buttress Iran; a decade of escalation on every front; eventual war against Saddam in the Persian Gulf, requiring; US military bases in Saudi Arabia – the kick-off for Osama bin Laden’s grudge match against the US; September 11; Afghanistan; Iraq; Afghanistan (yes, I’ve mentioned it twice: the mis-handling of the initial Afghan invasion in the headlong rush to Iraq left a quagmire we’re still drowning in).

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting there’s some far-ranging conspiracy in play; there doesn’t need to be. You see, the radical Islamist fringe has figured out the big secret: with the right people in office, it only needs a small group of committed lunatics to provoke the US into bone-headed, monumental overreaction. And that’s the other parallel here – the series of bombings that led up to 9/11.

All reports indicate that the assault on America’s Libyan Embassy was perpetrated by a small group who took advantage of a wrong-headed, but otherwise innocent, protest. The furore over a moron’s YouTube video is incidental (the Islamic world has long suspected that a proportion of westerners hold them in contempt; no news there). My guess is those behind the killings hope, by doing this right now, they can induce a game of one-upmanship between the presidential candidates; or – even better for them – a Romney Presidency.

Already, the Conservative rhetoric is ramping-up Stateside; and Romney, lacking even the subtlety of Ronald Reagan(!), has claimed the deaths as resulting from Obama’s foreign policy – backed up by, among others, Dick Cheney’s daughter (why do we allow these people to procreate?).

Obama is unlikely to be drawn into any brinkmanship; he’s too smart. And I still have faith that, no matter how bad things are, Americans won’t elect a Romney/Ryan ticket – but then, I was certain they’d never elect another Bush, much less do it twice.

I’m moved to recite the old proverb: each time we fail to learn from history, the price of the lesson goes up.

Hang on to your hats, brethren; there may be a storm coming.

COME BACK TO THE FIVE-AND-DIME, JIMMY DEAN ...( or: "Bubba Makes Me Tingly")

If those of us who pay attention to these things learned anything from last week’s US political conventions – apart from the sad fact of Clint Eastwood having followed Charlton Heston’s path from tooth-gritting tough guy to jabbering senile reactionary – it’s that William Jefferson Clinton could probably be elected President again this year, if he were allowed to run.

            For all President Obama’s intellectual brilliance, he has never once given a speech as nuanced or effective as the one delivered by Bubba the other night; it was by turns informative, charming, inspiring and just plain savage. It evoked memories of the 1993 address to a joint-sitting of Congress, when – ignoring the teleprompter – he riffed impromptu for nearly an hour (brevity’s never been his strength) on his deficit-reduction plan.

            It was masterful. Without ever becoming mired in dry jargon, he outlined not only the political and economic challenges America faces in coming years, but also practical ideas for confronting them. Without ever descending to name-calling or base sloganeering, he surgically neutered the theories of the opposition; demonstrated why the opposition themselves are hidebound, hare-brained ideologues who, given the chance, will compound the disasters of the last decade; and all the while gave the appearance of seeking a bipartisan love-in to rejuvenate the nation.

            They called Reagan The Great Communicator; Obama, The Professor in Chief. The former was effective in the way corporate motivators and appliance salesmen are effective: he had a nice line in slogans, and his demeanour made you trust him. The latter, while inspiring when harnessing his personal history to the deep-running streams of the American psyche, tends to get bogged down when it comes to selling policy. That’s why he left himself open to the charge of “class-warfare” over tax-reform, even with Warren Buffett standing next to him on the White House lawn.

            Bubba’s different. He falls out somewhere between your favourite uncle, a Nobel Laureate in Economics, and Casanova; he’s a folksy, intelligent seducer. “Come here,” he seems to say, that little grin curling the corners of his eyes. “Sit down with me, I’m gonna tell you how it is. Trust me”.

            I was moved afterwards to pull his most recent book, Back to Work, down from the shelf. The same style and substance are evident here as well. There he is on the cover, broad face smiling – warm, knowing. More than any writer besides, perhaps, Hunter Thompson or William Burroughs, you can hear his voice in your head as you read. In a very few pages, in that same, concise, easy manner, he sets out the situation at present (2011, when he was writing); how it was arrived at; the alternative theories on offer – and their flaws; and a forty-six point plan for solving the problems and moving ahead renewed.

            During his second term – and ever since – we got distracted by Bill Clinton’s trousers. It’s too easy to forget that he also happens to be brilliant. When he first came to office, conservatives were up in arms at the possibility of an un-elected co-presidency; such was Hillary’s prominence and ambition. The United States could do worse, four and-a-half years from now, than to end up with exactly that. If Mitt Romney is elected this year, they’re really going to need it.

... PERHAPS SHE'LL DIE.

So, for the second time in a year or so a group of our leading citizens has released a report recommending a radical re-think of drugs policy. Not just any old citizens, but those who’ve spent years at the business end of the current system, dealing with both enforcement and social fallout. Oh, and let’s not forget the Foreign Minister who, as Premier of New South Wales, presided over the most draconian drug enforcement push the country had yet seen, but was forced to change his ideas after considering the real facts – and the real cost.

            Will they be listened to? Of course not. They’ll receive the kind of grudgingly polite audience usually reserved for a senile aunty at Christmas; they’ll do the rounds of morning shows desperate for something – anything – to fill three hour’s airtime; then they’ll be quietly and completely forgotten. Much more important things for the community to focus on; like, say, the Prime Minister’s latest hairstyle.

            These kinds of reforms always founder on the prejudice and irrational preconceptions of the majority; people who know there’s a problem but don’t have any real idea exactly what it is, much less what to do about it. The chorus begins on cue: “oh no, we can’t just throw up our hands and admit defeat”; or the more succinct, equally vapid, “legalise drugs? Never!”  A large part of the problem, by the way, rests with the common ignorance of any distinction between legalisation and de-criminalisation; no sensible person is actually suggesting we legalise anything.

            Let me tell you about the effectiveness of drug enforcement. In the late 90s, when Premier Carr was dramatically increasing the Police force by drastically lowering the entrance requirements; while the Howard Federal Government was trumpeting the success of its Customs and Federal Police forces at intercepting heroin shipments; the availability and quality of street heroin reduced not one iota; if anything, it got cheaper, better and more plentiful. Dealers, you see – the big ones, the importers – are businessmen, smart ones; they know, and can afford, to plan for a certain amount of lost product as part of the business model ...

            The change came early in 2001. Overnight, the smack disappeared. Quite literally, one day you could score a quarter-gram of very good gear in Kings Cross for seventy dollars – less if you knew your way around the Western Suburbs; the very next, four desperate junkies and I scoured the city for seven solid hours, only to end up sharing a fifty dollar cap of weak, heavily cut dope. No major busts in the news; no big recent push by the Police; it was just gone.

Three days later, the guys who used to sell heroin could get you all the cocaine you wanted. Within six months they were selling crystal-methamphetamine – ice. Those smart dealers, the big guys, had made a business decision; they realised that if you sell someone heroin, they’ll go away and stare at their feet for six or eight hours; sell them coke or ice, and they’ll likely be back within the hour.

Now, I realise I’ve just lost half my audience with the admission of having been a drug user; and that half again of those still reading now regard me with suspicion; but let’s just pretend, for the moment, that I’m an intelligent, articulate, adult human being with basic grasp on the facts of the matter, and no reason to lie about them. Agreed? Then let us continue ...

I’m not going to waste time addressing the effects of the worldwide War on Drugs; nor will I drag out the old alcohol/tobacco comparison; but what are the immediate, local consequences? If you don’t feel inclined to ask an inner-city emergency ward nurse what life’s been like since the ice wave hit; if you don’t know anybody who’s ever had to confront someone in the grip of meth-induced psychosis; then just sit and have a good, long think next time you’re writing out a big cheque to your insurance company. Have a think about what all those extra police and resources cost when you’re doing your next tax return, or paying for a heavily taxed drink somewhere. Or maybe just drive past an inner-city Centrelink office, and ponder what it might be like if addicts were better able to lead functioning, productive lives instead of having to spend their time lining up the next fix; dealing with criminals; being reduced to criminality themselves.

“But,” I hear you say, “That’s just surrendering”. Surrendering what, exactly? And who declared war anyway? After forty years of carnage, of sending wave after wave of soldiers in a doomed frontal assault on a fortified position, perhaps it’s time to bust the commander to the ranks, and see if maybe there’s a way in around the back? How about, instead of inflicting the cost of this quixotic campaign on addicts, police and emergency services - and the community at large – we instead put the squeeze on the Big Boys; those bastards who never go within a mile of the ‘cross or Cabramatta? How? By neutralizing their client base.

William S. Burroughs summed it up half a century ago, and it’s never been put better: the one irreplaceable tier in the drug pyramid is the user in the street: You can intercept all the drug shipments you like; there’ll always be more. You can lock up all the dealers you like; most of the visible ones are trying to support their own habits anyway – there’ll always be more. You can even track down and punish the Mr Bigs; while there are astronomical profits to be made supplying the illicit market, there’ll always be more.

However, if you excise the user from this structure; if you ensure a dependable, safe supply - along, of course, with resources to aid in quitting when and if they’re ready – then the dual effect is dealers with no market, and many more addicts able to contribute to a society now spared the cost of marginalising them. The John Howard response to this was to say that it would put the government in the business of importing heroin; nobody thought to ask him where public hospitals get their morphine.

(Incidentally, we’re not talking about just handing over drugs to anybody who wanders in. Currently, to qualify for methadone – a much more addictive drug than heroin – you have to be urine tested to ascertain that you’re already an addict. Which is kind of the point; with this approach, you not only rob the illicit market of customers, but also effectively quarantine the existing addicts).

It’s at this point that those irrational preconceptions surface again: why bother helping grubby, useless junkies? If you’d ever hung around a methadone clinic, and seen the cross-section of society that walks through the doors – corporate types, old-age pensioners, even professionals supplement the stereotypical bogan cases – you might just reconsider. For that matter, talk to the people who clean the bathrooms at State Parliament sometime.

If all this is a little oblique, let me put it terms a child could understand: the war on drugs, and everything connected with it, is like swallowing a spider to catch a fly. Its social, economic and human costs far outstrip any return on the investment. Not only is it not working, it can’t work. We missed a fateful opportunity, after the Drug Summit in Sydney a few years ago, to stop swallowing flies while heroin was still the worst drug we had to deal with. Heroin is back, but ice is a far more dangerous drug, and it’s everywhere. What do we swallow to catch it? And what will be next?

I used to think community attitudes to drug policy would change when the majority realised that addicts are people too; flawed and damaged, but human, and worth saving from the unnecessary burden placed on their narrow shoulders by the current system.

I know now that the only way to change things is to point out that it’s you, the wider community, who are also being subjected to these needless assaults. This is an enormous problem, being made inexorably more massive by the hare-brained remedies applied. Drug use is a symptom, not the disease, and we’re trying to treat a runny nose by inducing cancer. You, dear reader, whether you’re a junky or not, are paying for all this. And it will get worse.

FRIENDS, ROMANS, POTATO HEADS...

This weekend, across the state, local council elections will be held. I have no idea who’s running or what they stand for. I have only a peripheral knowledge of what the local issues may be. The media is no real help: it was in vain that I searched the TV guide for Gruen’s Council Election Special.

            The reason for this dearth of information is, ironically, that local government is the political realm where we are supposed above all to find out for ourselves. The system’s designed that way. The idea is that we all get involved at the local level and those who show skill there become our representatives to the State Parliament, while others end up in Canberra, each step in the process nourished by an informed and engaged grass-roots polity. That’s the idea, anyway.

            The reality is that I know much more about the issues and candidates in the US Presidential election. I have books in my library about Paul Keating, John Howard, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and others; I’ll spend forty minutes listening to Barack Obama give a speech. There’s an independent candidate for council living opposite me: will I devote a quarter-hour to crossing the street and enquiring what his platform consists of? No, probably not. My ignorance of the specifics involved means I’ll probably just vote along the usual party lines. And there’s the rub.

            You see, I’m not alone in my laziness. Think for a moment: how many people do you know who complain about the state of our politics, the quality of our politicians, and the calibre of our leaders? Are you one of them? Now, how many of these whiners bother to even vote properly, much less make an informed choice based on active engagement in the process? How many of us even know who our Mayor is, let alone ever attend a council meeting? And yet we feel entitled to crap on about the major parties letting us down, and when elections roll around we trumpet the donkey vote as though we’re somehow reclaiming the system by surrendering it.

            When we abdicate our civic responsibilities, we leave the field to the vested interests, the party machinery, the NIMBYs, ideologues and every other species of gold-plated hustler who can slither by unnoticed and build a nest in our government; and they nearly all enter by the ground floor: they start locally.

            Don’t get me wrong, I’m unlikely to visit my local council chamber any time soon – unless to organise a rubbish pick-up. But nor am I a hypocrite: I know – and so do you – the consequences of inaction. We’ll keep muddling along, doing the bare minimum to contribute to democracy. And when the circus ramps up next year and we see the lack of real options at the federal level; when we’re asked to decide between a conniving party hack who couldn’t lie straight in bed on the one hand, and a rabid reactionary who’ll gut education and public services on the other, maybe then we can remember, and stop bitching as though it’s somebody else’s fault.