The Christmas Blog 2014

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Flowers in Martin Place - a sad end to a tough year.

If you take the cynical view, and many will, the Sydney Siege and its emotional aftermath could not have come at a better time for Tony Abbott and his shop-worn and slightly soiled government. On the very day that 'Diamond Joe' Hockey and Mathias 'The Lying Dutchman' Corman were forced to face the  MYEFO music and admit that;

(a) the budget had been an unmitigated disaster scorned and despised by all and sundry, with every divide and rule, tax the poor, ploy rumbled, and;

(b) the mining boom magic-money-pudding that had made the Howard years so easy to tout as economically responsible had finally run dry, and;

(c) this government would never, ever produce a budget surplus no matter how many terms it managed to lie its way into;

~ and suddenly the biggest end of year slap-down for any government in living memory became just a side-show next to the reality of a genuine 'Muslim-terrorist, Dog-Day-Afternoon, fear and loathing in Sunny Sydney' horror show. The siege, its innocent and heroic victims, its brutal and 'just as crazy as we thought these terrorist bastards were' protagonist; and the nauseatingly over-hyped television news coverage, became the setting for Tony 'trust me I really don't know what I'm doing' Abbott to look by turns, concerned, caring, fatherly and genuinely human.

He didn't manage to pull off Prime Ministerial, decisive, or penetratingly insightful, but then, he hasn't done since he got the job, and it's been a bloody long year with a lot of turbulence in what should have been clear political air. The opportunity now hangs in the air for Tony to become Mr. Safe-at-any-price, Authoritarian Asio-bloodhound, 'fight them on the beaches of Sydney', 'no more Mr Nice Guy' right wing demagogue of punitive measures for the disaffected leavened with a healthy dose of refugee bashing. And the worse things get in every other part of his government's remit, the harder to resist that temptation is going to be with the likes of Brandis, Cormann, Morrison and co beating the drum..

The nation's cosseted private sector media will only be too keen to lead, follow and cheer on the charge. Channel 9's post siege news positively gloried in the grief and misery, with an emoting blonde anchor pronouncing the grief of those who lost family members beyond any compare, before switching briefly to the murder of more than a hundred children by the Taliban in Pakistan to round out the A block intro at the top of the hour.

The carpet of flowers grows as thousands arrive to deliver them in person

Don't get me wrong here. I don't discount for a moment how genuine the pain of loss for a murdered family member is. Nor do I think that one person's grief is worth more than another's. But at 57 I'm relatively sanguine. I wept at the heroics of a young man who gave his life to save others, while the loss of the Pakistani children didn't touch me quite as much. Their distance lending a sad diminution of one man's emotional response in which I took refuge without shame. I know just how much my heart can and can't take.

Yet I am touched by the carpet of flowers that now covers most of Martin Place (and is still growing). That people are still coming in person to place their floral tribute displays not just grief and sadness but the warmth, generosity and open-hearted fellow feeling that is the best part of the Australian national character. That and their honest willingness to act on what they feel. And I am cheered to be a part of that. The #Illridewithyou campaign begun on Twitter shows not just how generous and open-hearted Aussies can be, but just how smart, insightful and able to sort emotion from reality. Our young can clearly discern and act on truth in ways that clearly baffle some of our politicians.

Stephanie Speirs organised 1,000 #Illridewithyou badges to give to commuters

But all three commercial TV stations are guilty of telling us how to think, feel and react to every tiny nuance of pain, grief, horror and shock in ways that went far beyond the normal realms of yellow journalism. Perhaps from habit as much as ignorance they hype up the faux-emotional at the expense of the real. They narrow the human response to banal phrases that don't ring true, just familiar. They distort for banal effect and in doing so betray the genuine feelings and thoughts of those involved. Straight reporting took second place to the values of fear-mongering, sensation-seeking and emotional manipulation that underpin the trite 'current affairs' shows that follow the news, and inform the shock-jock blame-a-thons that will surely follow on radio in the weeks and months ahead. I hope I'm wrong. But I doubt it.

The Telegraph - always first with sensationalist fiction.

My concern, however, and surprisingly, is for Tony Abbott. All year he's removed one foot from his mouth only to kick himself firmly in the teeth with the other when his tried and tested political skills were seen through so easily and consistently by so many. It appears that Generations X, Y and Whoever's Next take it personally when lied to so obviously, and in such clear, declarative pre-election promises. That and the endless series of rabid hard-right economic kickings handed out to the non-rich section of Team 'Straya has not worked the way it once used to. Cynical Baby-Boomers may not have been surprised, even if they were outraged. But the young are apparently made of more idealistic stuff, and less inclined to forgive and forget within the time-frame of a first-term government whose credibility before any election can only ever be zero from here on in. 

But, be that as it may, I had thought I'd seen in Tony Abbott a certain stirring of thought, of reflection on how badly things have gone, and in particular on how 'new, caring, soft-spoken Uncle Tony' had failed to earn any warmth from the punters. It looked from the cheap seats that Tony had planned to be John Howard redux - the concerned paterfamilias PM who sat above the fray and seemingly above party politics allowing his ministers their head and only stepping in to curb their honest zeal with a wiser restraining hand when enough voters got shirty.

The problem that won't go away, even if Tony goes away.

In reality it's just an old dog-and-pony show; let the Ministers fly the kites and if all goes well let them run with it, and step in to cut the ribbon when all's done. Or shut things down if the kite crashes and burns. But it seems Tony believed in it. And finding out this year that:

(a) if you lie so egregiously you don't get the benefit of the doubt when you say 'trust me with the details', and;

(b) people really loved that sod Whitlam and every socialist thing he did that sort of 'worked' and gave people a better standard of living, and;

(c) people really do notice when you manage to slide a $1 billion worth of funding for the Catholic Church into an 'austerity budget', and;

(d) if you really don't care about economics enough to pay attention, and just let the Huns ride roughshod over the budget, well damnit, people blame you for it anyway!

It all kind of took the shine off getting the Big Job which was what you wanted in the first place. And then there was that few days in early December when Tony appeared to be taking all this in, and genuinely trying to rethink things. I actually felt for him, which surprised me no end. Not sorry for him, more fascinated in the way that watching a Labrador trying to understand pockets is.

For a while I thought he might actually spend Christmas trying to re-imagine himself as PM - not so much 'Father Tony the political priest' any more, and well, something maybe that was what he actually could be if he stopped being Mr Knuckle-Sandwich from sheer force of habit. Perhaps there were some glimmers of a genuine attempt to learn on the job and adapt to a new century, a new demographic picture of Team Oz, a new ..

Well, it really doesn't matter now. The siege, the posturing, the playing the role of Chief Wreath Layer and uttering the Warm, Caring Pre-Programmed Phrases at every camera in the land may have banished that moment forever. And soon we'll get the inquiries and the security ramp-ups and the blame giving and more right-wing politics as usual. 

 Which is a pity.

One-term Tony. 

Is all I want for Christmas, 2016.

Oh, and peace on Earth. Every year. 

Or at least some signs that the Angels Of Our Better Nature are on duty.

So, Merry Christmas. Hug your loved ones. Cherish your children. 

Take time for your own happiness amid the stress of it all. 

It's been a really tough year with too many good people lost.

With love, AofM

Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys.

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I've tried. God knows I've really tried. But in the end it's just too convenient, just too much of coincidence piled on opportunity to be credible: That the Abbot Government's ghastly new security/anti-terror laws are being bludgeoned through Parliament by that most open-minded and nuanced of thinkers George Brandis while the nation's terror alert status is raised from "Strewth" to "Crikey!", and all while 800 coppers are unleashed in three states to arrest two prize dickheads of a certain swarthy ethnicity and unfashionable religious persuasion. It just defies belief. 

It reached that mathematical degree of dodginess where the number of Politically Convenient Coincidences (PCC) is greater than the degree of Probability and Credibility required to be true. It's a classic example of the famed Australian Bullshit formula:

 
It's an equation that allows right wing shock-jocks and empty-headed tabloid butt-monkey mouthpieces to drool and slaver over rabid headlines and egregious wog-bashing to their febrile hearts' content. It generates the public rubber-necking and under-the-bed-checking (aren't we a flexible people?) that distracts us from the One Big Story of the last year that just won't go away. Which is Diamond Joe Hockey's 'Bugger me, call that a budget?' epic drama of class hatred, social welfare dismantling and economic punishment that THEY CAN'T GET THROUGH THE SENATE!   

(Whoops, I got a little loud there. Nursey, it's time for my happy pills..)

Yet is this being spoken of? Not while there's a fear campaign to be prosecuted and a resolute, firm-jawed Prime Minister to be lauded. Does its myriad of toxic details and subtle undermining of our social fabric make headlines and column inches? Not while we have Clive 'Billion Dollar Loony' Palmer to wave in front of a dazed and puzzled public's alert-but-baffled attention span.

Clive and Tony are two sides of the same political coin. The PM is shown to be softly-spoken but carrying a big - actually put that down Tone, not in public mate, fair go - mandate for war. There is no mandate for war actually, no more than there is for the slash and burn of social infrastructure and disinterested reporting. But there is a precedent, which is the important thing. Howard took us to war on the basis of a pack of lies. And that didn't make him look any less of a tough, nuggetty little PM of our wide-brown-land. So Tony signing us up for a coalition of the "testicularly driven to bomb the bogeymen of ISIS" before there's actually a coalition to join isn't a problem.
 

"Trust me, I'd rather be out there with you guys... Boom! Ka-Pow!"

The Yanks still hadn't got their military shit together this time before Tony already has us shipping out and singing "Waltzing Matilda With Bombs" as if it was a done deal. And our feckless media have been singing from this hymn sheet for weeks now. Back this up with the horrible, terrible, scary, scary threat to all of us from those ethnic bastards who refuse to 'whiten up' and join Team 'Straya and we're off to another lovely war. Which always justifies any oppressive legislation you can dream up. 

"First they came for the bikies,
And I thought, fuck 'em, cos they scare me.
Then they came for the unionists,
And I thought, fuck 'em, cos they ain't me.
Then they came for my civil rights,
And I thought, fuck 'em, that's only for Muslims.

Then ASIO came to lunch, and I couldn't get the bastards to leave..

.. with apologies to Martin Niemöller 

All of which puts a spring in Tony's step and points in his popularity, which is half the battle won. So who cares what it costs us in those oh-so-scarce budget $$ and (other people's) homes and bodies? Our first bombs haven't stopped smoking in Iraq before Captain Aggro has us hinting slyly at sinking the slipper into Syria. Cos what's the diff? They're all just wogs, mate, eh? Trust me, this is going to get much, much worse before it gets better.

And the other half of this game of 'hide the budget sausage'? That's simple. You give the punters what every threatened, frightened, going to war nation needs. Clowns. Something to laugh at. And it's doubly successful if you can neutralise a political threat at the same time. Enter Clive Palmer pursued by bears. I like Clive. He may be a confused right-winger with a social conscience which sees his self-interest clash with his better nature twice a day and thrice on the Sunday show, but he's good for our democracy. He's different. He's unpredictable. He's an independent thinker. All of which means he's just as likely to do something positive as he is to do something selfish. 

And if ever a parliament needed some shaking up this one does. Complacent, comfortable governments produce crappy legislation (I'd tender the Qld Newman government as a current example). A little instability is good for a democracy - the Julia Gillard minority government had to fight for every detail of legislation, every point of principle, and over every public issue. The result was a raft of well-thought out, hard-won legislation that was genuinely aimed at improving this country for every one of us, from Gonsky to Disability Support and an environment we can actually live in.

You can tell this is true because the Coalition couldn't find a single issue in it to fight against at the election. Tony Abbott swore allegiance to every bit of it all across the country, with only Labor's internal shit-fight and the Carbon Tax as points of leverage. The second proof is the speed with which Tony's class warriors have moved to destroy every bit of it he signed up to. But I digress ..

Cuddly Clive has been attacked on all sides by every party, media ratbag and main-chancer for two reasons. First, he's a big soft target. His politics are largely driven by an emotional commitment to "the great Aussie fair go" where it doesn't collide with his own self-interest. He's actually an old-fashioned agrarian socialist (like the National/Country party used to be). He sees people at the bottom being screwed over - as in the government's attack on working class superannuation coupled with its slashing of age-pensions - and gets outraged at both the unfairness and the short-sighted stupidity of it - and opens his mouth and his wallet. 

That he usually can be distracted by a potential cost to himself shouldn't surprise anyone. But he does more to raise those issues than the Big Four parties combined. And he gets airtime - he's good press fodder, his antics and size and un-thought through ideas make good copy - something journos are desperate for in a world of shrinking newspaper circulation.

Which brings us to the second reason he cops such a whacking. He's rocking the boat. And all those in politics and the media who have their bum attached firmly to a place in the Big Show don't like that, not at all. Clive questions the orthodoxy. He says 'No, that's not the only alternative.' And, 'We could do something different about that'. Which makes Bill Shorten, for example, look like what he is: an unprincipled prick without a single idea to his name, or a policy he wouldn't strangle publicly if he thought it would advance his cause, which is Bill Shorten first, last and always. 

  

And it's not just the Shortens, Pynes, Morrisons and Milnes who detest him. It's the media pundits too. The talking heads who sit on the side lines and spout endless amounts of bilge-water about the harsh realities of economics and the cost of caring, and their endless fascination with the picayune details of practical politics. Reserving to themselves  the right and the privilege to decide the issues that matter in our tiny pool of tinier minds. 

They exist like mistletoe, swaying with the prevailing winds of gas-baggery, but rooted in and sucking nutrition from the power structure from which they claim to be independent. They all have a vested interest in the stability of our system of misgovernment. And any threat to the balance of media power threatens their security. So Clive is ridiculed as a gargantuan buffoon one minute and decried as a political hypocrite for his independence the next. From the equally porcine Laurie Oakes to the middlebrow twee of Annabel Crabb, their babble froths and bubbles yet contributes and signifies nothing.

It's like the 1950s never ended.

As I said at the beginning. I've tried, I've really tried not to be sucked into this government's predictable excesses. But in the end, when it's war abroad and class war and the construction of an expanding security state at home, I can't stay silent. But there is a mantra that helps. Just keep repeating
 

"Not my circus, not my monkeys."

"Thank you Nurse, I'm ready for my medication now .."

Something Spiritual for Christmas?

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Or, why our Immigration Policy is
The Hand Of God Moving in Mysterious Ways.

I have a new IPad app that lets me listen to British radio stations (oh yes, the thrill of it all!) and I recently caught the tail end of a conversation with an Anglican Bishop who was bemoaning the decline in Church attendance. He made the following comment:

"The Evangelical movement has failed as a reform movement within the Church."

I was amazed he had ever thought it could be one, when, to paraphrase my youngest daughter, it could best be described as "petri-dish mysticism" [i]. So, lest I be damned at Christmas, let me explain: First, churches operate at two levels:

1.     The communal and religious: the human urge to come together and sing uplifting songs, hear the word of their God expounded, and unite in worship and that warm feeling of virtue and connectedness. Enjoying communion - being part of a spiritual community.

2.     The individual and spiritual, or mysticism: an individual and direct personal spiritual connection to God, the Godhead, the Universal Soul (or whatever term works for you).

The first is the visible part of the church: the people it includes and all the charitable, generous, open-hearted and 'inspired' works they do. Which is the part of most Christian churches that's dwindling just as fast as their congregations are aging and dying.

The second is the personal spiritual connection that's always been distrusted and tightly controlled by Christian churches. Known as mysticism, it's about personally penetrating the 'cloud of unknowing' to reach and connect with the ineffable mystery of God. And that's why the Evangelical movement in Catholic and Protestant churches is a problem: it's a hybrid form of communal mysticism. All that speaking in tongues and spiritual healing and what looks uncomfortably like mass hysteria is the spirit of Christ, or the Holy Spirit, or whatever you want to call it, reaching down and overwhelming the faithful with bliss and rapture. It's a group orgasm of the spirit.

And if you think this doesn't have anything to do with you let me remind you that our Immigration Minister, Scott Morrison is a very senior Evangelical. His faith guides him, and therefore his attitudes and actions. And this is where the 'petri-dish mysticism' comes in. There are four levels or stages of transcendent experience involved in mysticism. They are:

1.     Bliss, or rapture.

2.     Illumination - the enlightenment bit, where you get new insights and a little humility.

3.     Exstasis, the separation of the soul from the body, and:

4.     Merging with the infinite, the Universal Soul, or God.

The problem is that Evangelicals aren't reaching beyond the first level. The 12th century Christian mystic and Augustinian monk Richard of St Victor described it thus:

"In the first degree spiritual feeling sweeter than honey
enters into her soul and inebriates her with its sweetness.."

That inebriation, being spiritually drunk (on the Holy Spirit), is what Evangelical services offer. Mass drunkenness, without alcohol. A cathartic emotional release which can wash away guilt and pain and regret without the understanding, insight or reflection of personal mediation or prayer. When people break out into babbling and gibberish it isn't a sign of over stimulation, mental intoxication and emotional overload it's a sign of holiness, of purity, of God's acceptance of who you are, with all your faults. And there's the rub. If this emotional and spiritual hot-tub washes only God's chosen vessels then we are, by definition, absolutely worthy, upright and deserving, true and correct in all our opinions and beliefs.

The Catholic and other traditional churches' long-held suspicion of this 'rapturous connection' is based on a genuine spiritual concern. People who are in this state of spiritual and emotional openness are enormously suggestible. And there's plenty of charismatic individuals in any generation willing to allow themselves to be first adored, then worshipped as beyond ordinary conceptions of morality, then obeyed to the letter in any despicable act or impulse. Cult leaders from Jim Jones to Charles Manson are notable examples of rapture followed by bloodshed. And while the Church may debate the degree of demonic influence involved the results here on earth are still bloody, appalling and socially destructive. 

Defensiveness, cults and reactionary politics

And it's not just religious cults that feed on this emotional and spiritual orgasm. When historian Robert Waite described Hitler as the 'Psychopathic God' this process is exactly what he had in mind; the cynical and systematic manipulation of people's emotional states to prey on their religious needs and instincts. The cult of personality around Lenin or Mao are similar extremes, but you can see the same fervour at an Obama rally, or in the cult of personality around Ronald Reagan among the conservative 'faithful'. People in groups will quickly connect and hype each other up emotionally, but intellectual processing drops to the lowest common denominator just as quickly. There is no need, or use, or room for intellect, discernment or logic. Just the rush, and the obedience of the herd.

That rapture, for the solitary individual praying or meditating is a sign that you're becoming spiritually open and emotionally responsive. It's there to motivate you to engage in the hard work of reflecting on yourself and your place in the world. On honestly seeing yourself in a broader context, which should produce humility. 

Instead Evangelical Churches favour an anti-intellectual Biblical literalism whose status as 'the absolute truth' is directly proportional to the fevered fervour of their emotional and spiritual experience. Which is the greatest, most powerful experience of their lives.  So there are no questions which can't be answered by their 2000 year old book of fables, myths, eye-for-an-eye morality, xenophobia, selective editing and obscure metaphysics. 

The head-shaking and derision this elicits from the rest of us does not make them feel loved. It only serves to amplify their self-imposed cultish isolation. And with all cults isolation breeds defensiveness, suspicion and a pseudo-martyr complex. God knows, they know they're right (about everything no matter how ridiculously uninformed they may be). They have God's miracle of orgasmic spiritual fever to prove it. 

This is the mindset that inspires reactionary politics: suspicion of outsiders, possession of a Holy Truth that others lampoon, direct authority from God for their opinions, no matter how small, or petty or cruel, or selfish, or self-serving or .. well, you get the drift. And when they get the power to punish others for their temerity in questioning God's chosen people.. well, watch out, Buddy.

I once worked with an Evangelical Catholic and his most prominent trait was an astonishing level of spiritual arrogance. He truly believed he was 'chosen of God' if not chosen by God. He was, unsurprisingly, reactionary and conservative, and he closely identified with the authority structure of the organisation, becoming progressively more humourless and authoritarian the longer he held any organisational power over others. He went from being regarded with amused condescension, to mockery, to animus, to fear and eventually outright hatred for his punitive, bullying manner and acts of spite and petty revenge.

The 'holier than thou' reactionary politics of Evangelical Christians is consistent with history's worst religious excesses. Pogroms, massacres, jihads and crusades all stem from religious fervour and fear. Fear which morphs into hate, and hate which generates violence. 

The cumulative weight of micro-aggressions targeted at refugees and other outsiders makes our society uglier and more hateful. It isn't just the 'boat people' who suffer. We all do when they arrive here damaged and in pain, embittered by their treatment, angry and resentful. And while Scott Morrison and Tony Abbott may keep them from staying here we will all still have to live in a society with new norms of behaviour that are progressively more hate-filled, mean-spirited and extreme, less tolerant of difference and diversity, more abusive, authoritarian and violent. 

And no God worth a good goddamn could be pleased with that.

And A Merry Christmas to You All.

PS: If anyone would like to engage me upon the rest of the four levels of transcendent whotsit, mine's a very large rum.

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[i] An acerbic and insightful young lady, she once memorably described the idea that pole-dancing empowered women through physical mastery as 'petri-dish feminism'.