CHARACTER IS DENSITY

Julia Gillard here at home, David Petraeus in the US; the political circus is putting on the Character Show again. Are we being a little precious? Have popular perceptions of integrity always been synonymous with leadership and ability?

            I know people who claim to have bribed one of our modern luminaries when he was still a union leader. No suggestion that the future Prime Minister actually pocketed the dough. He was just the point man in charge of greasing the skids; it’s the way things were done – the price of a smooth ride in business.

            Without suggesting this is right, or should continue, it’s worth remembering: if this man had been exposed and precluded from office, this country might still be trapped in a 1950s mindset and a 1930s economy.

            John F Kennedy was not only a serial adulterer, but rode into office on his father’s electoral corruption. Ditto Lyndon Johnson (although, he did his own bribery). In fact, it was partly by virtue of his dubious associations that Johnson was able to ram through the most far-reaching civil rights legislation since the Emancipation Proclamation (on a related note, Martin Luther King Jr also had trouble keeping his trousers on).

            This brings us to Kennedy and Johnson’s tragic successor: Nixon. He should have been one of the truly great. As Vice-President he effectively ran the US for much of the prosperous 1950s while Eisenhower was occupied having heart attacks. Domestically, he was a “compassionate conservative” before it was a buzzword; on the world stage, a true statesman.

            Sadly, in Nixon’s case, character was destiny. He inherited a war and, in war as in politics, knew only one way to fight – totally. Escalate; deal from strength; carpet-bomb anything that looks like an enemy and sort out the collateral damage later. “Tricky Dick’s” major flaw wasn’t dishonesty or corruption – it was paranoia.

            And so on throughout modern history; from Franklin Delano Roosevelt – adulterous product of the Tammany Hall Democratic Machine – who steered the US out of the Great Depression, propped up Britain during the first years of World War II, and provided the USSR with the money and materiel to defeat Nazi Germany; to Thomas Jefferson, the spendthrift who fathered umpteen children on his slave, Sally Hemmings; and, of course, his namesake, William Jefferson Clinton.

            We could mention one historical exception, a man whose private life was blameless to the point of boredom; who neither drank nor smoked; and who set out a political ideology early in his career and delivered on every word of it – after becoming Chancellor of Germany in 1933.

            Our Federal Opposition should be careful. The Character Show is a Pandora’s Box. Any points are scored at the expense of the public’s respect for politics in general.

            Still, the Prime Minister is in a spot: the scoundrels I’ve named had real accomplishments to offset their faults. In trying to govern by sound bite, she has largely avoided that encumbrance.

            Her real problem is that recent allegations fit squarely with a narrative she herself created – that of a Machiavellian schemer who knifed her predecessor, lied to the nation, and made a deal to retain government then welched on it. She did this to herself.

            Now she’s doing it to the rest of us.

666

I saw it rise from the water. In the spirit on dosing day I watched its pitching progress. Belly drag. All fins and stumpy legs.

Aeons. Shifting form. Always the reptile eye. Glinting from the undergrowth; hiding under rocks while extinction rained from the heavens. Emerge ...

Faltering upright. Grows. Overspreads. Instinct in a self-aware veneer.

I saw it kill. Blunt stones. Sharp sticks. Tooth and nail. Nails and iron shot. First, to live; then, to have. I saw it grasp and hate. I saw it reason.

Pleasures it found. Music hath charms to sooth the savage beast. Building and creating thought to think away its animal.

I watched it make a world and create itself a God (How long, Oh LORD, must our souls go unavenged?) Behold, I bring forth fruit from the vine and bread from the earth; I clothe you in the skins of your brothers.

Horsemen came to kneel before it: Pestilence and Famine, War and old blind Faith; rider on a pale horse, Death.

Groping for the Wisdom of Days it brought down fire from the skies. Drunk with its own wonders it raised from the earth an image unto itself. Copper and plastic; web of dripping silicone. All authority was given to the Beast and its Image. And none shall buy or sell who will not bow before it.

Life or death. Blessing or cursing. Love or fear. Behold, I lay them before you. Choose.

Shadow or the heart? Our reptilian brain. Us.

We are the Beast.

CHILD ABUSE ROYAL COMMISSION - ABOUT BLOODY TIME

It’s mildly disturbing to discover you agree with Christopher Pyne about something. The use of the confessional seal to protect paedophile priests is an appalling anachronism. The Catholic Church is one of few still employing it – some denominations even practice public confession.

            Cardinal Pell has responded in his usual arrogant fashion to news of the Royal Commission. He defends the sanctity of the confessional, and looks forward to the investigation sorting the “real cases” from the “exaggerations”.

            Until now, while usually disagreeing with him, I could respect the Cardinal-Archbishop for his mind and achievements; so much for that ...

I used to respect another bishop, the one in charge of the diocese where I grew up. He was friendly, approachable, and good with kids. At all the milestones of my catholic upbringing – reconciliation, first communion, confirmation – there he was.

His local subordinate was the Monsignor. There are photos of me with both these men on my big days. The Monsignor used to come occasionally to my grandmother’s house; sit in her kitchen, drink her tea, and eat her biscuits.

I don’t know if either of these bastards, when he put his arm around me and smiled into the camera at my first communion, had heard a specific confession of what was done to me. I don’t even care. They knew what had been done to other boys, and had moved the offending priest to another diocese. None of the parents were ever told.

Both are dead now. Both taught the doctrine of Purgatory. The revelations of recent months make me want to believe in it: I’d like to think they’ll spend some time there.

In announcing the Royal Commission the Prime Minister used an unfortunate phrase: ‘Those who averted their eyes from this evil’. Averted eyes aren’t the problem; aiding and abetting abuse is the problem. For years the church hierarchy actively covered up child abuse, not merely protecting abusing priests but moving them on to find fresh victims.

Even now, there is anecdotal evidence of them hindering police investigations. Their method of dealing with victims – and here Cardinal Pell is personally culpable – is to throw money at them and shut them up. Given that one frequent outcome of child abuse is drug abuse, that hush money has done even more damage.

 And still the Cardinal sings his old tune: It’s all a media smear campaign; priests need to be protected from the moral trauma of disclosing criminal confessions; and anyway, other people do it too. I’m waiting for him to mention the recent BBC troubles.

He’s right in one respect. The Royal Commission must, and will, investigate abuse in more than one organisation. It should search as widely and as long as is necessary to root out this scum from our institutions – the perpetrators and their collaborators.

Is the Catholic Church unfairly being made the face of this issue? An institution which regards itself as the world’s spiritual parent and arbiter of public morality deserves to be held to the highest standard: it succeeds or fails above all by example.

Ordinary Catholics, their children, and the majority of honest clergy who serve them deserve better. Perhaps a little public penitence would do some good.

JUBILEE THOUGHTS - Royal Tours, Crazy Aristocrats

As the Queen’s jubilee year winds to a close; as the Prince of Wales’ tour ends and this proud nation wipes away a tear, sniffs, and gropes once more at the trailing apron string; the mind wanders. Weird associations ...

            At dinner last week; the old guy at the next table asks his friends: “One thing I can’t understand – how could Charlie leave a beautiful woman like Diana for a sack of potatoes like Camilla?”

            I never got the Diana thing. Leaving aside Camilla’s comparative assets, or otherwise, I just didn’t think Diana was all that attractive. I had a fair idea of what she’d be like, and could imagine the hell of being married to her.

            You see I once knew one of the Spencers – a cousin. He was the image of Earl Spencer, the brother, who had his moment of fame in 1997. A friendly, generous guy, he used to ply me with drugs and alcohol hoping I’d get drunk or high enough to fall into bed with him.

Although he never overcame my titanic tolerance for intoxicants, it eventually worked on another young man. When the youth came-to, pantless in a Darling Harbour hotel room, his first act was to stumble downstairs and call the police. The royal cousin-in-law found himself charged with false imprisonment and indecent assault.

As I said: friendly, generous; and almost completely out of his mind. I’m reliably informed that he was a fair representation of the rest of the Spencer family, stretching back generations. So no, I don’t think Di was the innocent, abused snowflake she and her acolytes would have us believe.

‘But,’ they say, ‘She was such a wonderful mother. She broke the stuffy royal mould of parenting at a distance. She was affectionate; took her kids on holiday. Those boys will be the salvation of the Monarchy.’

Bollocks. As I write this, the ABC is continuing its tradition of royal documentary programming: Prince Charles, wading through old home movies. To my inexpert eye, they seem to be years’ worth of images of happy, affectionate family frolics; at home, on holiday, and at sea on “working trips”.

So, maybe after the fun was done a nanny took the kids to be bathed and readied for dinner; maybe Mum and Dad could at times be remote, or intimidating. In other words, maybe in some ways they resemble two-thirds of all the other families in the western world in that era.

Sadly though, the Dianolytes are right in one respect. In this country, removed from the institution itself, the Monarchy is reduced to a personality cult. The advent of the royal grandsons may well keep the monarchist cause alive another generation.

In Britain, monarchy serves a purpose. Aside from being a self sustaining tourism campaign, a long serving monarch provides a valuable source of counsel for British prime-ministers; an institutional memory.

Here, it’s a sea-anchor. Not so much in governmental terms, but a mindset: symptomatic of a cultural cringe; a deep insecurity underlying our pugnacious national over-compensation.

We still, a century after federation, live in our mother’s garage. We’re the little man of the western world.

Isn’t it time we grew up?

RAINGOD

I’ve written before that the best portrait in literature of high-functioning autism is Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes*. I may have been wrong. I think I’ve found a better one in another book; actually, in the book – it’s God.

            Think about it. He’s bright, brilliant and creative. When we first meet him he’s so obsessed with his current project that he works for six solid days before collapsing on the seventh.

            He’s enigmatic. Although he can be great company when he wants to be, often he’s just hard to get along with. He invents bizarre little rituals that he insists everybody around him follow. Failure to do so results in fearsome tantrums – either he melts down and destroys everything in sight, or shuts down and doesn’t say a word for centuries on end.

            Nobody’s ever quite sure what sets him off.

            It’s not that he doesn’t want to interact with people. In fact, he craves it. He’s desperate to love and be loved; he’s just not sure how. Try as he might, it always goes subtly, horribly wrong. He’s convinced he’s always perfectly reasonable – why don’t these people get him?

            The problem is he empathises better if he’s actually been in the other person’s shoes. Thankfully he’s blessed with the ability to think in unusual ways, and to stubbornly apply himself to a problem until it’s solved. So, after a couple of thousand years mulling it over, the answer dawns: You want to get along with humans? Then, be a human.

            Applying that gift for lateral thinking again, he not only gets around the need for sex in conception, but also becomes his own father (let’s see you do that).

            As you might expect, he’s a strange, serious child. He causes his parents no end of worry – vanishing on a trip to the city, only to turn up lecturing people at the Temple steps.

            The familiar pattern continues into manhood. Some love him; others hate him; few are indifferent to him; nobody gets him: is he really this way, or is he taking the piss? Was that a joke? Why does he talk for so long, and so impenetrably? What the hell does he mean? And where does he get to when he disappears for hours or days at a time?

One thing’s for sure: he has an idea of himself, and he takes it very seriously. So seriously that it gets him killed. He doesn’t deal well with authority – civil or religious.

Since his little sojourn among us he’s mellowed a bit. No more smiting. He still engages in interminable monologues on ideas he finds interesting; but he generally limits himself to speaking at people nearly as odd as he is himself.

And still, nobody can agree on exactly what he’s saying.

No Sherlock Holmes, but it’s a compelling portrait, eh? Precisely what questions it answers regarding a Creator – benevolent, omniscient, absent or otherwise – I can’t really say.

But it might just tell us something about the guys who wrote the book ....

*The Diogenes Club, 30 August 2012

STARS AND STRIPES AND ... SO WHAT?

By any practical standard it’s irrelevant who wins the US Presidential election this week. It’s easy to forget amidst the hoopla that Americans will also vote for Congress on the same day. Unless there’s a significant change of make-up and politics there, it really won’t matter which candidate takes the White House. The very closeness of the Presidential race indicates no such change is likely.

It’s a two-party system. Each party can count on between forty-two and forty-eight percent of the vote; voting is also non-compulsory. That means elections are decided by as little as four percent of those who bother to turn out and cast their ballot. During the last three years something interesting has happened in this narrow middle sliver.

In 2008 President Obama attracted a record number of first-time voters. Being first-timers they were, by and large, extraordinarily childish in their expectations of the process – they missed the “we” in Yes We Can. Having discovered that casting one vote in one election won’t make the New Jerusalem descend from the heavens, the worry is that this time they’ll stay at home.

Meanwhile the President’s opponents, under cover of the Tea Party and their ilk, have taken over the ideological machinery of the Republican Party. Along the way they’ve dragged part of that vital middle sliver sharply to the right.

Friends who regularly travel Stateside tell me we have a false idea of Americans; that a noisy fringe in the media gives the rest a bad name. Sadly, with the connivance of single-minded lobbyists and demagogic news media, it’s that fringe which increasingly determines the direction of public affairs.

For all their messianic hope for the advent of a new Reagan, it’s their influence on the Congress which will shape the next four years. Should Obama win, they’ll continue to stymie his domestic agenda, leaving him free to act only when it comes to drone-strikes and assassinations. Even if the Democrats win big in a mid-term reaction, he’ll have only two years left – in Washington terms, nothing.

If It’s Romney, he’ll either toe the line or not. If, like his hero Reagan, he decides to raise a tax here and there to offset proposed spending cuts, they’ll turn on him – the way they turned on Republicans who backed the stimulus and healthcare bills. The net result, in any case, is the same.

The joke is that most in the fringe are honest, hard working people who think they’re defending their own interests. They genuinely believe that, thanks to Obama, they’re paying higher taxes. They’re not. Even after enactment of the stimulus package and Obamacare, taxes for the average American have gone down. Not that you’d know it by watching Fox News.

Tea Partyers have been sold a line by a cynical politico-economic elite with an interest in stoking their fears. A distorted view of past and present imperils the future. It seems unlikely that anything short of another financial catastrophe will spur the “change” all parties glibly promise.

When a society begins to be taken in by its own mythology, it’s perilously close to disappearing up itself. When it does, a large chunk of the world will be sucked in its wake.

VALE, ALP - WE LOVED YOU WHILE YOU LIVED

A former union organiser and, until the second term of the Carr State Government, a lifelong member of the Australian Labor Party, my father is wont to say: ‘I used to be proud to mix with the cream of the working class; these days you’re associating with the dregs of the middle class’.

I too have voted Labor all of my adult life. The present government, however, is rapidly stripping me of any argument I might use to persuade myself – let alone anybody else – to re-elect them.

Forget the appalling sleight-of hand whereby they’ve removed Mainland Australia from our migration zone; that’s merely symptomatic of a sickness with which we, the community, have infected successive governments of either stripe.

Populist xenophobia notwithstanding, it has been possible to mount other defences of Labor: elect the Coalition, you could say, and they’ll gut tertiary education, and slash funding for training and research. “The Education Prime-Minister” and her government have now sacrificed that line as well.

In the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO), the Government have held on to Howard-era middle-class welfare such as the Child-Care Rebate (not means-tested), and the “Baby Bonus” (cut from $5000 to $3000 for a second child, but still means-tested to $150,000 of annual family income).

Meanwhile, they’ve cut $500 million* from research funding to universities, $82 million from income support to some undergraduate students, and a further $167 million from some master’s students, all over four years; and all in the same week where they released a White Paper urging the country to skill-up and engage with the “Asian Century”.

Tourism Australia estimates that, by 2020, between $7.4 billion and $9 billion a year will be contributed to the national economy by Chinese tourists: perhaps we can all serve them drinks and clean their hotel rooms. I hope they tip well.

The Hawke-Keating Labor Governments dragged this country by the scruff-of-the-neck out of its nineteenth-century economic mindset; remodelled the hidebound system that doomed the Whitlam and Frazer Governments; and set the scene for a decade of prosperity under John Howard.

This Government is ready to hamstring us for the next century, and all to protect a theoretical budget-surplus that barely a breathing economist believes is essential or even advisable. They’ve thrown away Labor’s economic credibility, and trapped themselves with their own political sloganeering.

But what’s the alternative? The Abbot-led Coalition is no better. The Greens? They were borderline crazy even under Bob Brown’s calming hand.

I’ve never been a fan of informal voting; always saw it as individuals evading their responsibilities. If I was Clive Palmer, however, and looking for insane ways to spend a fortune that didn’t involve a replica Titanic, I’d fund a national campaign:

Next year, leading up to the Federal Election, I’d do my level best to persuade the entire country as one bloc to vote informally. Not one single vote for any of these bastards. Send them back to try again.

Maybe then they’d get the message.

*All figures – The Sun-Herald, 28/10/2012.