One Biased Guide to the Victorian Senate Election

When Australians vote at their federal polls in a few weeks time they will face a bewildering amount of choice. Particularly in the Senate, many minor parties and independents that no-one will have heard of before will be listed. In Victoria, my home state and senate electorate, there are ninety seven candidates vying for six senate seats.

Voters can register a legal vote by numbering in order of their preference every individual box below the line on the senate ballot paper. Voters can also choose to register a legal vote by putting a one in a single box above the line next to a grouping’s name, usually a political party. If they do it’s as if their ballot below the line is filled out automatically according to the grouping’s preference ticket.  These preference tickets are made available online by the Australian Electoral Commission. Not every candidate has a box above the line. Some have missed the deadline to submit their preference ticket to the commission.

With ninety seven boxes to number this year I began to worry that I will stuff up my usual voting below the line by listing two people with the same number. That wouldn't actually render my vote invalid as I first thought;
“The act and the ballot paper instructions state that a below the line vote must have preferences for all candidates, but there are a couple of savings provisions. You only have to fill in 90% of squares, which in NSW means 99 preferences, and your vote will be able to survive up to three preference breaks, that is duplicated or missed numbers.” – From Anthony Green’s election blog.

Voting below the line also got easier with this great online tool.You can basically construct your own how-to-vote card before the day.

I still might vote above the line this year though. There’s the benefit (or curse) of letting a party research where my preferences go. I can also check what any above the line grouping will do by checking their preference ticket online. Groups with more than one preference ticket will be splitting their above the line votes between each ticket sending equal portions one way or the other.

For the benefit of people still trying to decide their votes and because it’s interesting to see who is really aligned with who despite the rhetoric I've tried to give a break down of each of the Senate groupings and their preference tickets. To do that I've reduced each preference ticket to five parties that I think could reasonably be the destinations for all the preferences from all the other minor parties.

Of course it’s impossible to absolutely say who will win an election before it’s held. However it’s reasonably possible to predict a party’s chance of gaining one or more seats based on recent history. It’s hugely unlikely that a senate seat will go to anyone other than a member of the Liberal/National Party coalition, the Labor Party, the Greens, Family First, or the Australian Democrats. In fact it’s unlikely to be any more than one Victorian senate seat that doesn't go to Labor or Liberal and probable that none will. That means we can estimate that votes for any party will end up here.

This is a particularly dangerous year to make this kind of estimation because there are some brand new parties contesting. Wikileaks, Katter’s Australia Party and Clive Palmer’s vanity project are brand new contenders. I’m taking an educated punt that they won’t be winning a single seat in Victoria at least. (Katter and even Clive Palmer have bigger followings in Queensland). If I could have one wish it would be that we don’t wake up to a surprise win on preferences for some pure racist party like One Nation. Fortunately no-one is predicting this.

So without further ado here are the groups and the flow of their preferences in the order (pretty much) that they appear on the ballot. 

Rise Up Australia

Why are anti-multicultural groups also consistently climate change denying? That’s just one question raised by a party that in its “manifesto” states that our country is founded on both the Ten Commandments and freedom of religion. Do they not know that the first of the Ten Commandments is to worship no other gods but Yahweh?

By freedom of religion Rise Up Australia does not mean freedom to wear the Burka. That is number one of the religious freedoms they do not mean as it is actually their first policy to ban it. Interestingly they describe climate change as a quasi-religious claim but this is insufficient to base government policy on. I presume only fully religious claims will do.

This party has the good fortune of being first on the ballot paper. That alone might net them some accidental votes. Their party song failed to move me.

Votes above the line here will flow;
1. Family First 2. Liberal 3. Democrats 4. Labor 5. Greens

Senator Online (Internet Voting Bills/Issues)
Here is a party with pretty much no policies. To be fair they can’t really have any. This is because they propose that any of their successful candidates will follow the majority vote of the general public via online voting.

Is that a good thing? Indicate yes or no in the comments below.

How on earth did they decide how to allocate preferences?;

1. Family First 2. Australian Democrats 3. Greens 4. Labor 5. Liberal

Liberal/ Nationals

If you squint they look a lot like Labor. That’s what Thatcher looked like before she was elected too. Or Joe Hockey the last time. Or that German Charlie Chaplin who wasn’t funny. You only think you can estimate the range they can possibly destroy. Imagine something totally evil like Native Title overridden in a northern economic tax-free zone for mining interests or Little Ted, homeless and forced to perform tricks for bucks and these people have imagined it too with a chardonnay in hand and laughing.

Oh God, they are going to win aren’t they?

For some reason the Liberal National Coalition have two preference tickets. Both follow the same path;
1. Liberal/National 2. Family First 3. Australian Democrats 4. Labor 5. Greens

HEMP (Help End Marihuana Prohibition Party)
From their website “Our sole purpose is to agitate for the re-legalisation of Cannabis for personal, medical and industrial use.” and that it seems to be.

The prospect of a Liberal victory sure makes this party much more attractive. I even find their unwillingness to be distracted by any other legislative concern admirable. It’s like when you can’t find any papers at the party and someone tries to talk to you about the music that’s playing.

What is annoying is that they have three preference tickets. Two of them have:
1. Australian Democrats 2. Labor 3. Greens 4. Family First 5. Liberal

One of them has the Greens before Labor:

1. Australian Democrats 2. Greens 3. Labor 4. Family First 5. Liberal

Family First
One of the few parties that put house-affordability and work-life balance on the agenda. I want to go to church with them for that. Then they drop the ball with climate change denial and support of a voucher system that will undermine public education. That house you can afford will be on a sinking island of your separatist subculture.

This may be a party particularly attractive to young earth creationists who will appreciate not having to teach their kids about the devils science but don’t underestimate their support. Family First is arguably the fourth or fifth (or sixth if you count National and Liberal separately) choice in Australian politics. As we will see that’s out of a squillion.

Voting above the line here will probably result in a vote for the Liberals;
1. Family First 2. Australian Democrats 3. Liberal 4. Labor 5. Greens

Country Alliance / Shooters and Fishers / Australian Fishing Lifestyle

Country and Alliance; only the Country Fresh Alliance could possibly be more attractive at first glance. But don’t be fooled, this is not the voice of all rural people but a movement who have drawn a sharp line of division in their communities.

Along with the Shooters and Fishers Party and the Australian Fishing Lifestyle Party the Country Alliance aim to defend the right to fish, hunt and drive motorized vehicles through the bush. The AFLP call them “Lifestyle rights”. These rights are supposedly under threat by the Greens and Greened Labor (rather than actual overuse) who it’s claimed are locking up the environment through native land and marine parks based on bad science.

These Lifestyle rights parties are not insignificant when it comes to mobilizing and that’s a real problem for the Greens in the country. I’ve never handed out how to vote cards without one of these parties being represented alongside me as well. Even when they don’t win votes they shape hearts and minds to be suspicious of “urban” greenies.

I can’t help but feel that this is a conflict that will only get worse as our regional populations grow. I find that a shame as a greenie voter who appreciates the hunter and fisher’s sense of independence and history to their craft. That said I worry these parties are potentially manipulated by big industry and developers. And what kind of a sport is four -wheel driving seriously?

Each of these parties differs on their other policies, a little. But their publicity all sounds very similar and they all hate the Greens.

Country Alliance send their preferences;

1. Liberal 2. Labor  3. Family First  4. Australian Democrats 5. Greens

The Shooters and Fishers Party and The Australian Fishing Lifestyle Party both send their preferences along the following route;

1. Family First  2. Australian Democrats 3. Liberal 4. Labor 5. Greens

Australian Voice Party / Building Australian Party.

Why was the question I couldn’t stop asking when reading about these parties.

The Australia Voice Party’s largest policy area is its own party’s structure. The Building Australia Party “has grown out of discontent from within the building industry and the building design profession” according to their website. Really? Do we all need our own parties by profession now?

You can read either party’s policies for a handy sopoforic effect. These groups may be a way of doing politics differently – outside the usual paradigms of left and right – as both suggest but they will need some copywriters if they are going to be successful. Unfortunately those people have all joined the Copywriters party.

One positive; don’t let the Australia in their name fool you. There’s no evident racism or cultural conservatism in these groups.

If you are into Building Australia your preferences will flow as follows;
1. Australian Democrats 2. Family First  3. Liberal 4. Labor 5. Greens

If you want to raise an Australian Voice;

1. Family First  2. Australian Democrats 3. Liberal 4. Labor 5. Greens

The Secular Party of Australia

Does what it says on the tin I guess. This might gain some votes from people annoyed at the chaplaincy program in state schools where convoluted hiring processes enable anti-discrimination laws to be evaded. With their support for the removal of religious exemptions to the tax act they are also probably the party whose policies will most balance the budget. Sure it’s not enough policies to govern as a major party but then this is always going to be a protest vote.

What such a protest vote does next is;

1. Australian Democrats 2. Greens  3. Labor 4. Liberal 5. Family First.

The No Carbon Tax Climate Change Skeptics Party

Backed up by no less that six peer reviewed scientific papers (according to their website) here is the worlds’ first party for truth in science. Beyond that issue they just want government to get off our backs and let us make some mon-hay while the sun shines on with no significant increase in intensity.

Strange that they preference Labor before Liberal;

1. Family First  2. Australian Democrats 3. Labor 4. Liberal 5. Greens

The Stable Population Party

No.

The Stable Population Party has three separate group voting tickets and I’m just not going through them all. Here’s a conversation starter for your next social mixer though; Should child benefits only be paid for the first two children of each mother?

Smokers Rights Party

 Of their policies only one actually might benefit smokers (lower prices) while the rest simply helped new smokers get recruited (relaxed advertising restrictions). I call bullshit, Smokers Rights, and if you don’t like it I will run up a hill away from you. 

They don’t even have a ticket so I didn’t actually have to review them. Crap. Bed time, I'm done.

The Australian Independents
This might be the only party to actually say upfront that they will ban the sale of puppies from pet stores. (Justice for Animals, I will get to you in my next post.) Braving the under five backlash, this is one of a raft of bold but sensible policies.

Sure singling out specifically Christian welfare agencies as deserving of increased funding is odd and I’m no fan of their off-shore processing policy but they do want a significant increase to our refugee intake. Furthermore they prioritize homelessness and mental health. We could do a lot worse.

Just when you think we’ve done every possible combination;

1. Family First 2. Australian Democrats 3. Greens  4. Labor 5. Liberal.

Bank Reform
Not only Banks but the supermarket and legal oligarchies are in this parties sights. Competition is their goal and they aim to pursue it from the government. Irony aside they have some good arguments that we can regulate against market concentration whereas at the moment we regulate for it in some sectors.

In my own opinion if peer to peer borrowing and crowd sourcing took off we wouldn’t need to care about reforming the big banks. Given that’s years off making a difference maybe the Bank Reform party has a purpose. On the other hand the Bank Reform party is many more years off making a difference so you do the math.

Not sure what they have against the Greens;

1. Family First 2. Australian Democrats 3. Labor 4. Liberal. 5. Greens

The Greens

The Greens are equal parts evil and incompetence if you believe many other parties. There’s even one called Stop the Greens whose policy is self-evident. As a participant in their pagan canabilistic orgies however I’ve found them to be generally integritous and thoughtful.

The Greens are really the champions of a certain economic philosophy. This is the philosophy that supports subjecting economic activity to social and environmental assessment. It was ultimately a deal to govern struck with the Greens that forced Gillard’s Labor to introduce a carbon tax.

The Greens don’t view all economic activity as equal. Instead they do what makes traditional economists squirm. They “pick winners and losers” in the marketplace like fresh food over potato chips, clean energy over coal and fair trade over free trade. They then reflect that with taxation and subsidies from government.

That’s not all the Greens are about. With the demise of the Australian Democrats they have taken over the role of the progressive and humanitarian party. If you draw a spectrum of views on issues like marriage reform, access to abortion, foreign Aid levels and our response to refugees the Greens are on one side, Liberals on the other and Labor is in the middle. This makes life hard for those conservative Christians who despite opposing marriage law reform and reproductive freedoms want to see a Green party response to Foreign Aid and Refugees.

The Greens have had my first preference for years. This year I’m tempted to give it to a smaller party so long as I know it will flow to the Greens before any other possibly successful candidates. The reason for my change is that the Greens are sounding too much like a proper political party lately even putting spin on negative polls. It was always their straight talk through the bullshit that I admired most of all.

Here’s where the Greens send their polyamourous love;

1. Greens 2. Australian Democrats 3. Labor 4. Family First 5. Liberal

This is the first page of the preference tickets. There’s another page and twelve more groups to discuss. That will be the next installment of  One Biased Guide to the Victorian Senate Election.

Gay rights for Straights!

O.k., the last post tried to address a question; “Why do Christians receive very little flack for their negative views of sex before marriage, and a much greater and more virulent amount for their disapproval of homosexuality?” 

I never really could get stuck into answering it. The problem was that the question contained too many assumptions and prejudices. I spent the whole post deconstructing the question. It turned out to be the wrong approach to the topic that I want to address, namely that the conversation over whether gay people should have sex (Are you paying close attention gay people? Or are you over it?) is actually a question in which people who aren't gay are attempting to resolve arguments that don’t particularly have anything to do with gay peoples lives. Gay sex is the site over which non-gay specific battles are being fought (hence the title of this post).

Firstly we should recognize that the question as to whether or not gay people should have sex is in fact a transformation of another question; whether or not people should have gay sex. (You may have to read them closely to notice the difference). What has caused this transformation is that we have a concept of gay people not just gay sex now. We have such a concept largely because we have a concept of heterosexual people. Men and women do not generally view their relationships as an obligation to come together and commit the gross indecency of sex for the purposes of procreation according to their parents’ wishes, except perhaps if they’re royals. Instead heterosexual relationships are viewed as consequences of deep attraction by people seeking life partners. That attraction is not just physical. It is a type of love that while different to the love of parent to child is no less love. One aspect that distinguishes that love from others is the appropriateness of its physical expression in sex. The experience of that love for people of the opposite gender is what we understand by heterosexuality.

The Christian bible was written long before any common concept of heterosexuality permeated society. In fact a darn good case can be made for blaming the Bible for our concept of sexuality (particularly Paul) and the whole modern relationship between sex and love – but it’s a complicated one and it took several centuries for it to bear fruit. I won’t go into it here. It’s sufficient to say that in Christendom until relatively recently sexual expression of any kind was not generally treated as the consequence of sexuality. Homosexuality has been historically understood as just the pursuit of a base pleasure that anyone might enjoy, or as an act of deliberate rebellion.

Sexuality and its benefits is the first subtext of the conversation about gay sex. People in sex-less heterosexual marriages (and there are many of them) for example find an expression of their pain in the language of sexuality. These people do not feel that they are just missing out on some pleasure like a good wank, they feel like they are living out a diminished life. They feel like an important part of their self-hood is denied them. This is a new articulation; that sexual expression belongs to a part of our self-hood called sexuality. When people argue over whether gay people can be expected to be celibate, these people in sex-less heterosexual marriages find themselves answering no because it is the answer which respects the concept of sexuality and therefore their own story and suffering.

Now of course it is not just people in sex-less (love-less to use a more common term) marriages who are using gay rights arguments to represent their own sexual situation. Obviously gay people are doing it too. But gay people form a minority of the population and gay rights is increasingly a majority concern. It is for all of us that sexuality has become about much more than just having sex because we ought to. Sexuality is a part of an expectation of quality of life and significance for our feelings that is becoming more and more universal.

Are arranged marriages wrong for example? If your answer to that is generally yes then you are possibly relying on a human right to a sexuality that is going to decide your opinion on gay marriage as well. It is the concept of sexuality as being the good expression of our own attractions that both condemns arranged marriages and supports gay ones. Note that this expression is not limitless. No-one gets to marry whoever they want to – you have to woo them first. There are also matters of consent and cruelty and probably even the carbon footprint of it all will become relevant. It’s not a free for all. However there is still within those limits a right to sexual expression according to this idea called sexuality.

This is why the limits to sexuality can’t just be arbitrarily set. Any limits to sexuality have to take the value of sexuality into account. That’s part and parcel of treating our sexuality with respect. We need to balance respect for our sexuality with other respects (such as for other peoples sexuality)  but there’s a default healthiness and goodness to our desires that ought to see the light of day in some manner. This is the positive personal script for straights that is expressed by supporting gay relationships.

Another subtext to straight peoples support for gay and lesbian relationships is around a redefinition of their own relationships. What does it mean to be distinctly heterosexual – to see your relationship as remarkably different to a gay relationship? One the one hand it is merely noticing the sex category of the partners. It may even be noticing the socially privileged status of your relationship. On the other hand though, to be distinctly heterosexual is to elevate the heterosexual aspect of your relationship to one of primary moral or health importance. It is to say that each person’s gender in the relationship should have significance. Putting that personally it would mean that I as a guy think my own guyness and my partners womanhood ought to be important in how we interact with each other and with others.

It doesn't necessarily follow that if a person feels distinctly heterosexual in this way that they have to be opposed to gay relationships. They can simply imagine that different boats float differently. However it is impossible to hold a strong opposition to gay relationships without believing in such a distinct heterosexuality. This is why even the more benign organizations which have problems with same sex attraction believe in the notion of people fundamentally and spiritually divided into men and women. Meanwhile the less subtle an organizations disapproval of homosexuality, the more patriarchal their politics. There is a relationship between calling gay relationships sinful and a belief in such ideas as male-headship and women’s special roles of submission.

The relationship between the two is partly governed by the biblical fundamentalism which supports both. However the rejection of the two isn't anything to do with biblicism. It’s to do with feminism. I would be genuinely offended if someone at the bank or the ballot box for example treated my partner differently to me on the basis of her gender. Although gender might well matter to us erotically our practice of it is a matter for our own selves. It’s a role-play to which nobody else is invited. We don’t want our genders to be political or social categories.

This belief broadly held in Australia by all ages but especially the young, means that politically and socially we are all in gay relationships. That is to say that where gender is understood as a political and social category we want to belong to the same one as our partners. The conservative detractors were right that feminism could ultimately lead to universal lesbianism – they just didn't see that some of those lesbians would be men.

The above is a bit of hyperbole; this is still a pretty straight world. Most people are still presuming opposite-sex attraction of most other people most of the time, certainly in Bendigo where I live. However we are increasingly presuming that gender roles in families have no common definition. This makes it a private matter for a relationship to be gay even in the midst of straight cultures. Consider the following much-tweeted quote from Ellen DeGeneres;

“Asking who's "the man" and who's "the woman" in a same sex relationship is like asking which chopstick is the fork.”Couldn't a similar claim be made for every modern relationship? Who is the fork or knife in your relationship?

These are two ways in which the opposition some have towards homosexuality runs foul of matters important to straight peoples own agendas. We oppose the politicization of our genders in our straight relationships in the way that is necessary to disapprove of gay relationships. We don’t want to be distinctly heterosexual. We also want to live out our own sexuality fully – treating our romantic and sexual feelings with respect. We see our best chance to do that tied to the rights of gay people to do the same.

There is another big battle that is being fought out over gay people’s lives I've yet to mention. It has to do with how we allow morality and God to be defined. It particularly has to do with whether we tolerate inexplicable morals and victim-less crimes as the will of God. I won’t touch it in this post but I may get to this point next. Because it is a battle that especially interests myself and others of a theological bent we possibly overstate it's influence anyway.

Truth is we're not grappling with theology so much as we're just looking for someone to love.

Moralising anyone?

 Several days work researching and writing recently vanished with the collapse of my laptop. I’ve had some data recovered but there’s still a big loss. As a consequence I’m going to pause before returning to the topic I had almost completed on Roman Catholic attitudes to sex and contraception.

Quite frankly I also need a break from it. Whilst the highest Catholic authorities use a fairly cool language to describe the issues there are a lot of hotter heads amongst academics at Catholic institutions and writing for Catholic journals. Some of their comments are basically cruel and manipulative rhetoric. I’m more than a little sick of digesting it.

On a positive note I am now typing on a brand new computer! Closer to the point of this blog my discussions with people about contraception and general sexual ethics have raised a fascinating question;

What is Moralising?

When I think of moralising I think of a negative term meaning to go on excessively or inappropriately about morality. I don’t so much mean a certain type of discussing morality that is negative however, as I mean morality itself as seen from an angle that reveals its insufficiency – it’s inherent tendency to excessiveness and inappropriateness.

Moralising is therefore a trigger word for me that recalls a range of alternative ammoral perspectives which are pragmatic, non-dualistic and sensualist. The Book of Chung Tzu is a stand out example.

The Standard English Desk Dictionary of 1975 (in two volumes of actual paper on my shelf) defines Moralise as to indulge in moral reflection or to interpret morally. There’s no clear negative quality given to it at all. This surprised me although its also reflected most other dictionaries I perused.

Those dictionaries that did include a negative weight to the word moralising seem to be aimed at  non-english speakers. It’s as if they are trying to bring people who may not be aware of a cultural phenomenon up to speed. That cultural phenomenon is a broad disdain for moralising which isn’t hard to discover.

Ask almost anyone who doesn’t have a dictionary in their hand and they’ll have a negative pejorative association with moralising. Just as I do. What’s really interesting however is how diverse those negatives are. Mine emphasises a lack of pragmatics – the unhelpfulness of morality. My partner’s idea of what moralising means emphasised the inflexibility, the black and white vision, the lack of context that morality can sometimes have. For others it has been the weight of imposition and imbalanced power behind it.

Yet another theme is that morality can have sinister motives, either to herd us in ways that serve powerful interests or for an individual moraliser to make their wrong actions seem right. Moralising is used to describe the conduct of these insincere endeavours. That’s quite similar to how the word rationalising (which merely means to find reason for) is often colloquially understood as to manufacture excuses for bad behaviour. "Rationalising" is done by companies that chop down rainforests and "moralising" is done by Preachers who want brow-beaten flocks.

Equally fascinating about all these concerns is they come from outside the game so to speak. Let me explain what I mean by that. 

Morality is about right and wrong, defining what should be done and what one should  avoid doing. If I propose that something like living with your partner without being married is some kind of bad then from according to the logical flow of our discussion (“inside the game”) you are obliged to either concede the point or argue how it is not so bad and possibly even good. There are several types of “evidence” we can point to – a sympathetic connection with “the victim” as we see them, how this arrangement meets or fails certain rights, a social effect beyond the parties involved. If we agree on a morally authoritative text or understanding of natural law then we can also skip to that reference as well.

To say that my criticism of unmarried cohabitation is merely trying to excuse other behaviour, that this kind of morality is part of an agenda to control us, that other people’s relationships are none of my business, that it’s all too abstract a way to look at the situation or that I should “lighten up” are all refusals to play along. They are comments made from outside the game.

These responses don’t make logical sense in the conversation. They don’t flow or reflect what precedes them in a logical way. It is as I have said one plus one equals seven and rather than correcting my addition you have said “Maths is dumb.” If logic is our master then we should dismiss these responses.

However there are many instances when logic clearly is not a good master and needs to be reminded of its servant’s role. Seven is more than two, and two point two, four eight is also more than two. There are no arguments against accuracy to be found inside mathematics. However if two children argue because one got point two, four eight of a minutes more time with the favourite doll than the other then the aggrieved party can expect to have their case dismissed for lack of importance. In fact as a parent I think its important at this point to stand outside the game and point out the fruitlessness of the argument. We call that “not buying into it”. Maths (and logic) is for getting things done and there’s nothing to do here. Maths in this instance really is dumb.

In the same way labelling a discussion pejoratively as “Moralising” is an outside the game criticism of moral logic that can be purposeful and valid. Very few people would bother to defend writing with your left hand as morally sound even though it was once considered “sinister”.  A roll of the eyes is about all we’d give such a concern today and I consider that progress. However there are decent objections to the idea that the charge of Moralising (in its negative, pejorative meaning) really does come from outside the game. Criticising moralising is itself a statement of values; it is itself a moral statement. At a very fundamental level saying you shouldn’t tell people what to do is a contradiction. When I make this statement I am after all telling you what to do.

I am not the first person to make this argument. We live in a time when what was once intolerable is now increasingly a right, such as writing with your left hand but also the acceptance of the cohabitation of unmarried lovers and same sex relationships.  People who argue against these cultural changes run up against the growing belief that they moralise excessively, inappropriately, with the desire to control and impose behind their speech and a failure to consider nuance and context. In short they are accused of the pejorative form of “moralising”. They counter with the argument that anti-moralising is the aggressive new morality and that tolerance is now promoted with zealous intolerance.

As much as I eye-roll at those who preach intolerance of defacto or same sex relationships (or left handedness) I think they have a point that the criticisms they face are not truly outside the game. Or rather I don’t think there’s any clear inside or outside of the game of morality. There is a category of moral statements we consider legitimate moral discussion and another category of statements we consider “moralising” in a bad way. There is a struggle for our moral concerns to be included in the former category and for those concerns we don’t share to be in the latter. That struggle is no different to that of parent and child; where the child wants the parent to impose fairness over the fraction of a minute’s difference in time spent with the doll, and the parent wants the child to let it go. Just as eye-rolling doesn’t really cut it as an explanation to the child neither should it cut it for us.

As adults (pretend adults perhaps) this struggle is fought along the lines we define by our use of the term moralising. To give an example that puts me in the moralising corner you could consider the flippant use of gay to describe things as corny and trite. Leaving aside the fact that the fear of corny and trite inspires more shallowness than it avoids, I object to the use of gay in this way. I will ruin the party mood at times by pointing out how hurtful such speech could be to a gay person and how it is lazy and inaccurate. For this I get labelled as “moralising” which refuses to engage with any of my arguments but dismisses as stuffy the whole of discussing this topic as moral.

Looking specifically at my objection to morality as not pragmatic enough (that’s a blog post right there) you could consider my refusal to give much shrift to pragmatic concerns regarding the indefinite detention of refugees. Indefinite detention for child abusing priests is something I would not even agree with. They should at least know their sentence. Indefinite detention for people fleeing situations of torture and oppression because they might not be genuine but almost definitely aren’t is deeply immoral. Just think about what indefinite detention means for a second, apply it to your self and it should be obvious. However to some people I am moralising here in exactly the way I object to. I am drawing a line in the sand and refusing to even countenance any kind of cost-benefit analysis of the situation.

I feel that the people calling my attitude to gay jokes and refugee detention “moralising” in order to dismiss it, are actually proposing their own morality. It’s a morality that specifically excludes my concerns. I even think that, as much as any morality, it can be disingenuous, dichotomous, and inappropriate, with the desire to control and impose on behalf of power. In summary I think their use of  the criticism “moralising” is “moralising”!

I don’t really believe there’s a pax rationality that can solve these kinds of contradictions. I think language is supposed to be useful, and even normative, more than it is supposed to be consistent. And it’s massively worthwhile to limit morality to those matters which are of concern, as well as to point out when morality is being used to control us for hidden interests or when it reflects gross power imbalances. However we should be cautious using “moralising” in a pejorative fashion as our sole argument for anything. It’s worth recognising we aren’t really coming from an amoral and unassailable position. We are just trying to make ourselves unassailable. 

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Note: I was recently and deeply impressed by an article by Hugo Rifkind  which makes a similar point to this post. He writes about how sport claims to be above politics and how that is in itself a politic. It is a politic that allows dictatorships to use the neutrality of sport to soften their tyranny and murdering corporate sponsors to connect themselves with health and hard work;

“In theory it’s about putting sport first; rising above the petty wrangles of current affairs. But in reality, current affairs are the things that kick down your door and drag you off to a torture dungeon. Rising above them turns you into a whitewashing service for any global villain with a cheque.”;

Essentially no morality is a morality.

A clearing of my heart on religious freedom.

The ALP national conference recently changed their platform to support marriage equality for same-sex couples. A part of that motion was the following; These amendments should ensure that nothing in the marriage act imposes an obligation on a minister of religion to solemnise any marriage.

I’ve been trying to write about the moral responsibility we have to defend others’ freedom of religion. I want to discuss why the above quote in the motion should have been included, not just as a sop to opponents of gay marriage to get the motion through but for its own good reasons.

The reason I want to write this is very specific. I want to write against an ugliness that is in my own heart. It’s a drying up of sympathy and a simmering anger. It’s a frustration with those who have been in power for so long and only now are having to share it. Even now they are refusing to let go of that privilege. We have to tear it from their hands pulling each finger back at a time. We have to do this while listening to them whine about their oppression, about how it’s so unfair that they might have to acknowledge gay relationships or at least not refuse them service. All this while they’ve never seemed to notice how much their own relationship celebrations along with all their religious concerns about our relationships overwhelm the rest of us.

Unfortunately the size of this ugliness inside me is so large I can’t write past it. I certainly can’t write over it. In the words of the song “Going on a Bear Hunt” we have to go through it. I need to look directly at what’s bothering me about discussions of religious freedom before I can address my question.

To be clear; I’m not bothered by the idea that gay marriage is wrong. I may disagree with that idea but I’m happy to engage with it and know good hearted people who hold it. It’s the idea that conservative Christians are victims in our society, with gay marriage the latest attack on them that I’m over. I was once at a dinner party entirely of conservative Christians and me. When I said “I see the recognition of gay relationships by the state as freedom of religion” I copped a screeching “They’re taking our rights.” Yet it’s only the right to exclude others from a special status for your enjoyment that’s being taken away. If this feels like a loss of rights to you, you must think a disproportionate amount of respect and power is your right. It’s because you’ve grown fat and sleek and round on other people’s deference. Any discussion of religious freedom is plagued by that expectation of deference.

There’s a great piece of advice in the Bible though. It’s that we should remove the plank from our own eye before the splinter in another’s. Nobody recognises their own privilege and I like the average conservative Christian am often whining on my throne. When I was a kid I liked to believe I was oppressed as a left hander. When I was older I briefly occupied bisexuality as the site of my oppression. Seriously I am a pretty lucky man in a wealthy country and the rest is largely indulgent crap. I am not oppressed in any significant way – not as a non-theist in a theistic family either. Having to argue your opinions is not oppression. I do have crap teeth though so you know, woe is me.

Even acknowledging all this there are probably still privileges and power I hold and don’t see. I know that I feel the concessions I am obliged to make towards religious people and assume I never ask the same of them. One way that “secularists” do this is through the very definition of secularism as a sort of non-religion and non-philosophy. Secularism as a non-biased basic social language that allows all religions and the irreligious to thrive is a fantasy. Of course there are religions such as the church of the randomly violent or the fellowship of drunken crane operators that we don’t allow to practice. Saying that all churches can operate freely within the law just dodges that the law is how we restrict religion. Nowhere is this more apparent than with discrimination legislation.

Within half a century Conservative Christians in the UK, the U.S. and Australia have gone from being able to close down any establishment that allowed same-sex dancing to being unable to refuse service to unrepentant homosexuals in their own establishments and to being sued for promoting homophobia in the workplace. Back then many peoples’ careers were forfeit if their homosexuality was known with imprisonment or forced psychiatric treatment real possibilities. Now there are almost challenges to the rights of conservative Christians to try and cure their own gay children. Certainly there would be publicly funded services that would support any child who refused such treatment.

It should be obvious that these changes restrict the religious freedom of Conservative Christians. To say otherwise is to play word games with either freedom or religion. However that doesn’t mean that these changes restrict religious freedom overall. The religious freedom of gay dancers is massively increased. This isn’t a war on religion or freedom – if that were so there would universally be more regulation whereas same-sex dancers (let alone conjugators) will assure you for them there is less.

Furthermore it should be obvious that this isn’t any kind of attack on conservative Christians except an inadvertent one. The end point of these cultural and legislative changes is not to oppress Christians but to enable those who want to, to disregard them. The motive of the Queer politic within secularism is to ensure people can live as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender without obstruction and harassment. From a queer perspective if this crosses conservative Christianity that’s conservative Christianity’s fault. It certainly isn’t the queer activist’s objective. This isn’t just playing with words. The second half of the ALP motion is really just stating the obvious.

Despite this conservative Christians do claim that there is a war against them and their beliefs. The reasons for this go beyond just being used to having their way with other people’s lives. As a “born-again” myself I witnessed a church culture of nostalgia for those days when their forebears were being fed to lions. There’s a knowledge that power and privilege are fundamentally at odds with Jesus’ own life and the life of the apostles. Some Christians respond to this by giving up power and privilege. Those people are amazing and I am in awe of them. Most however are as soft in the middle as me. Many can’t sit with the feeling of being a bad Christian and so resolve the contradiction by denial. They ignore that Christianity is a requirement of the most powerful political office in the world and instead identify with the oppression of Chinese Christians. The conservative Christian worries that some people are taking the Christ out of Christmas without wondering if the very ubiquity of Christmas is something that non-Christians might be a little tired of.  There’s an overstatement of cultural loss and personal alienation in order to imagine they are carrying a cross up Calvary even as they are planning a second multi-lane freeway of privilege to get there.

This sense of oppression is helped along by the tension between conservative Christians and science. When the entirety of peer reviewed science tends to support evolution then Creationists are in the same position as climate change deniers – either they’re wrong or there’s a conspiracy against them. But Creationism isn’t the only way conservative Christians can bang up against science. You can’t find a credible peer reviewed piece of psychology that says homosexuals are sick anymore, not since Evelyn Hooker forced the American establishment to look at its biases. Sure you still get crank research put out by “Family” Associations but nobody will publish it. The reason why is that it fails basic standards of research (often taking correlation for causality and failing to use a proper control). From the conservative Christian perspective though, this research is “buried” by an agenda driven scientific establishment. 

This false sense of oppression becomes collective wisdom; disputing it threatens your belonging to the group. Consequently I can wake up to my privileges a whole lot easier than someone inside a conservative Christian church. This does actually mean that I have some sympathy for conservative Christian whining, at least initially. By the umpteenth manifestation of the persecution complex with the next must-read piece of dodgy research my patience wears thin. I start to feel that maybe the kindest thing I could do is a swift whack up the side of the head to wake them up to themselves.  I want to scream that this is not a debate about whether everyone’s out to get you. This is us witnessing the slow maturing of the Conservative Christian’s perspective half a lifetime later than it should have happened.

None of this frustration has any logical relation to the question of how defending religious freedom is a moral responsibility. It’s just a huge emotional cloud covering my thinking and blocking my writing. My brother recently commented that while he can see that gay marriage possibly should be legal he’s overall leaning is towards the opinion it shouldn’t be. I’m not just leaning towards the belief that conservative Christians should have the legal right to not officiate a gay marriage. I feel fairly convinced of it. I’m also leaning slightly towards the belief that schools which teach that homosexuality is an abomination should lose their licence to teach. I find it immensely difficult to articulate exactly why in both cases. I still feel that’s something I should try to do but I had to get this off my chest first.

What just happened? The political game that was the ALP gay marriage vote.

The Labor Party of Australia just changed their party platform to allow same-sex marriage. The exact wording of the motion was;

“Labor will amend the Marriage Act to ensure equal access to marriage under statute for all couples irrespective of sex who have a mutual commitment to a shared life. These amendments should ensure that nothing in the marriage act imposes an obligation on a minister of religion to solemnise any marriage.”

An amendment was passed to this motion allowing Labor party parliamentary members a conscience vote on this issue. This was passed by 208 to 184 votes.

The amended motion was then put to the floor and passed without a counting of specific votes. Clearly the ayes had it.

All of this is being presented as democracy in motion; however, the exact outcome is so precisely what Labor would want to do strategically that I have my doubts it wasn’t planned to turn out exactly this way.

Same sex marriage has always been a difficult issue for Labor electorally. More so than any other party their voting base is divided on this issue. As momentum for change has grown, Labor’s “do nothing” stance has lost it voters to the Greens. Party strategists however have been concerned that supporting change will lose it more votes to the Coalition.

To allay that concern advocates of change have pointed to the polls which indicate consistently a majority of support for gay marriage in almost every sector of the community. However those polls miss the point. Although most people support gay marriage, Labor party strategists fear that supporters include only a few who would change their vote over the issue. Opponents of gay marriage however may be more likely to vote accordingly. This is the difference between soft and hard support. While hard support (which decides voting intention) is growing amongst supporters of same-sex marriage, soft support is probably still much larger amongst potential Labor voters. Hard supporters of same-sex marriage may have long ago left for the Greens. Some would come back if Labor supported gay marriage unequivocally but many wouldn’t for other reasons.

Meanwhile opponents of gay marriage are almost always motivated by religious conviction. This tends to lead to hard support (although like any personal politic that gets drawn in different directions by the party system). If more opponents than supporters of gay marriage let this issue decide their vote Labor could be following the majority of people on this issue and still pay a penalty electorally.

Further complicating matters is that particular feature of the lower house – the electorate. Seats in the lower house are won and lost on votes in a particular geographical area. The impact on votes of gay marriage is very different in different areas. So the Labor party candidate in a rural Queensland seat faces a higher risk of losing their seat if they support gay marriage while an inner city Melbourne candidate will probably lose their seat if they don’t. Remember even if a majority of people in an area support gay marriage the issue (for the party) is how much hard support and opposition there is amongst potential Labor voters in their electorate.

The absolute perfect political solution to these problems would be to bring the party platform into line with the majority opinion but without running afoul of the hard opposition to change. This would be enough for the soft supporters of Gay marriage who want to vote Labor. Further it will stymie the flow of votes being lost over the issue. So long as Labor can present itself as generally supportive of gay marriage even if it is unable to change legislation (that darn obstructionist opposition!) the Greens will have a hard time using this issue to draw votes to themselves. The Greens can’t say they are the only party (with an electoral chance) to support gay marriage any more. They need to use much more complex language to differentiate their party on this issue. At election time complexity is not rewarded.

The conscience vote amendment allows candidates to loudly or quietly support or distance themselves from the party line if it is useful in their seats. Candidates had previously done this by stating their support for gay marriage in conflict with the then party platform. They were never going to be sanctioned for this when to do otherwise would have been political suicide in suburbs like Brunswick or Glebe. Similarly the party won’t mind a member who votes against gay marriage in line with hard opposition in their electorate. In fact with a leader who is on record as saying she doesn’t support gay marriage it is going to be a very safe environment for such transgression if it can even be called that. 

It is important that, for this strategy to work, people who need to differentiate themselves from the party line be able to do so publicly and heroically. Having a count of votes on the amendment does that. It is also helpful that the party adopt the change to their platform without forcing all those supporting it to be visible. This was achieved by not having a counted vote on that. All in all Labor achieved exactly what it might need to neutralise this as an election negative for them while capturing the positives from it.

There are risks to this strategy. It’s unsure exactly how it will play out once a same-sex marriage bill is actually made law or rejected. It’s possible that the conscience vote will be forgotten should the bill pass and the opponents of same sex marriage will punish the party who broadly supported it. Alternatively if gay marriage is blocked its supporters might move from soft to hard just by the issue having been given a higher profile. No one really remembers a party’s official platform over their policy achievements so Labor could expect to lose some votes from such an outcome. I imagine the party hacks will be trying to figure out if it’s best to introduce a bill after the next election or before. It’s hard to see how Labor can keep this issue on a backburner for much longer though given its growing representation and support.

The Liberal party face far less significant challenges in regard to this issue. The Howard years have purged the party of many supporters of gay marriage. Obviously the hardest supporters couldn’t stay in the fold when Howard passed his Defence of Marriage bill. There’s not much more to lose by keeping that line and while there might be votes to gain by changing, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Still when polls show the majority of people are in support of gay marriage this is not an issue the Liberal party will want to emphasise at a general election. To do so would ensure the soft support from the majority hardens into something threatening. This means they need to control their angry conservatives. We can expect one Liberal message for the general public and another playing to communities where same-sex marriage is opposed. The first will say that this same-sex marriage debate isn’t important, the second will emphasise the need to vote in regard to this matter.

The Liberals need to decide whether their party will allow a conscience vote on any bill that comes before the house and whether they will revisit the issue (if it passes) should they gain government. Regardless of ideology, electoral strategy will play a big part in these decisions. Just making a call I’d say they’ll decide “no” to both.

A Liberal sinking of the gay marriage bill is too disruptive to the governments agenda to not tempt Abbott to impose a binding vote. It will leave the ALP with open divisions and forces them to make another decision on the issue; Do they resubmit the bill triggering a double dissolution and having an election on this issue? Although the Liberals don’t want to make the election about same-sex marriage they won’t be upset if Labor does. They can be completely on message that this is an unimportant issue, an obsession for the government when other matters are more pressing. When Labor doesn’t resubmit the bill it will disappoint its strongest same-sex marriage supporting members.

Only if Abbott is going to be publicly defied by high profile members would he allow a conscience vote. Abbotts control is weak and he can’t afford to expose that. Allowing a conscience vote would definitely be preferably to having one anyway against his will.

It would be complete madness for the Liberals to promise to repeal same-sex marriage after an election. Any promise of this sort would need to be downplayed to the general public while amped up in the anti-gay marriage pockets with a failure to control that being disastrous. The majority of people have soft support for gay marriage and the Liberals need to tell them this issue doesn’t matter. Revisiting the issue will be, according to the Liberals own message, a spiteful further waste of time.

Mind you anything is possible. Abbott is not the shrewdest political operator and often speaks before consultation with wiser party members. The ALP themselves have made mistakes but under Gillard they work together better and as a team they are a lot more careful than Abbott. They are always planning the next election.

Saying there is a tactical sensibleness to the outcome of the ALP conference doesn’t mean that there aren’t people of integrity making what they believe is the right call – on all sides of this debate. There were 184 delegates who rejected the amendment to allow a conscience vote despite this reducing Labor’s political flexibility. However let’s not kid ourselves that democracy ran riot here either. The outcome of the ALP conference was so tactically perfect that I suspect this was a debate that was permitted to happen because its outcome could be foreseen.

That’s politics.

"Don't Diet, Riot."

I have a t-shirt in my closet from the last decade. Its a little paint stained now. It’s from the RMIT Tafe Womens Collective and bears the slogan “Don’t Diet, Riot”. Even at the time I got the t-shirt I could see the irony to it. After all, I knew a few people inclined to riot that might have benefitted from changing their diet of a litre of coffee for breakfast first.

The point of the slogan is to challenge how much energy women in particular are encouraged to devote on self-change rather than social change. Back in those Uni days I was involved in a lot of efforts to produce social change. I organised as well as attended rallies, I helped create free-food networks. I published zines, postered and otherwise proselytised. I took a bucket of chalk into the city regularly and encouraged people to take up temporary graffiti. I was a member of collectives who occupied buildings and built tent-cities. I even joined the Greens and stood as a candidate for a seat they would never win; It allowed me to talk to all the high schools in my local area about workers rights and feminism.

I often saw and seized opportunities to demonstrate collective action and build solidarity in everyday situations; the dole que or the supermarket. I identified as an activist before anything else. I was radical but committed to engaging with society not separation. My final student placement was at Centrelink and I was employing action research principles to engage young service users. I wasn’t just an angry lefty. I was an optimistic anarchist.

Then I got beat up at a protest. By police and pretty badly. (September the 11^th a year before the trade towers fell) Further to cover up their crime they charged me with assault. Afterwards poorly aware of how badly this had affected me I pretty much trashed my health and a long term relationship I was in. This certainly replaced my optimism about activism with fear. I never knew the readiness of the state to turn to violence to serve the powerful so well before. It wasn’t that which really ended my activism however. It was a feeling of the uselessness of the “movement” in helping me hold it together and eventually get back to some healthy place.

The post-protest support networks seemed to be organised by and for various political factions. I was never a member of those. I felt unknown. One activist “ally” even refused to hand over photos of my injuries for the court case because they were her property. The only people who I felt stood by me were my real friends, many but not all of whom were fellow activists, and family. Subsequently I felt and still feel that I was naive in my belief in ideological solidarity. If family is blood to friendships’ water then ideology is as thin as air.

After the court case died down I was still angry and suffering for it. Even more than trusting family and friends I had to conduct some serious self-change. I went to counselling. I cut down caffeine, did some relaxation techniques, worked on my sleeping and (with the assistance of my elder brother in particular) paid attention to my diet. Perhaps to the mortification of Tafe Women’s Collectives I even made sure I looked after my appearance. These things made a life saving difference. It was good dieting not rioting that I needed then.

When I felt well enough I did re-engage with society but it wasn’t as an activist. Although I now had a social work degree my self-confidence was still too low for paid work so I took some volunteer work at a drug and alcohol detox. A year or so later this turned into a job. I remember talking to some young firebrand of a uni student about this time. She saw me as burnt out and didn’t want to hear when I said “I just feel it’s healthier for me to be working on the individual level at the moment.” She couldn’t see that the individual level and the social level are connected, that the one forms the other. She would be even more unimpressed with me now.

Now I’m a dad. I’ve worked in a few places, more detox work, in prison briefly, with street-involved youth in Toronto, at a supported accommodation for people with mental health issues, but I was very happy to give it up to be a dad. My partner has worked full time for almost two years now and aside from a day a week of family day  care started six months ago I’ve been the stay-at-home dad (horrible term really) since our kid was one and half. Further we have no t.v. and I hardly ever read the paper. We live in Bendigo. At the last election I handed out how to votes for the Greens with a stunning lack of knowledge of the issues. This is really the apex of my withdrawal from social activism and my involvement with society writ small.

So why am I telling you all this? Well I asked for some blog post ideas because the piece I was working on started to look a little crappy. I got two suggestions. One about what Democracy means and another that asked “How important is physical occupation as opposed to conceptual heft/virtual profile etc. to the Occupy movements success?” Where I’m coming from at the moment I don’t have a lot to say that easily addresses these topics. Both are interesting but I look at them sideways in a way that some people might feel misses the point. I thought I should explain why I want to speak from this place instead of any other. I’m not against big movement, public activism but it doesn’t capture my heart either. I still remember its uselessness in my hour of need.

That said I often feel dissatisfaction with my almost complete disengagement with social activism. As the kid gets older I want to reconnect with making the world a better place alongside other people rather than at home one load of washing at a time (which reminds me). This blog is actually a part of that.  I’m also contemplating chicken co-ordinator at the kids kinder.

You can look forward therefore to a few more political posts mixed in with the philosophy and theology. I even have some thoughts about the specific topics suggested to me; about 1,400 words worth at last count but I’ll let my sexy editor review it first.

Until then, eat well.

Tolstoy feeds me humble pie.

As if to chastise me for my chutzpah in writing a cocky little manifesto for the 99% movement (last post) I read the following;

(Note: Just so that the lefties don’t stop reading at the first paragraph what Tolstoy means by “collective effort” is more like submission to a group program for change not just any form of co-operation.)

“This is why freedom from the servitude in which we find ourselves at present is impossible for those who seek it in collective effort. It can only be obtained by the substitution of the law of love for the law of violence, that fundamental principle of Christianity*.

“This doctrine says to each isolated individual: You cannot know the end of social life; you can only envisage it as a form of progressive approach towards universal happiness, towards the realization of the Kingdom of God on earth. On the other hand, you are aware of the aim of personal life: it is the development in each of the greatest amount of love, in order that the kingdom of God may be established. This aim is certain and is easy to approach.

“You can be ignorant of the best methods for attaining this external goal; you can meet obstacles in the way of its realization; but nothing can stop you drawing nearer to inner perfection: the increase of love in yourself and towards others.

“So it is enough to institute in the place of this illusory social goal, this individual aim of life, the only sure and accessible one; and the chains you thought were fastening you forever will drop immediately and you will feel yourself absolutely free...

“The Christian can ignore the laws established by the State because he has no need for them for himself, or for others; he considers that human life is better assured by the law of love he professes than by the law of violence imposed on him...

Can it be put any better? The writer is Tolstoy in The Law of Love and Law of Violence (p70-71). He is quoting his own earlier work. The abridgements in the above are his.

Tolstoy is saying that real change – the only meaningful change at all- doesn’t come with a clearly mapped world order (communism or capitalism). Instead the only meaningful and achievable change comes from personal commitment to the rule of universal love as professed by Jesus.

Amazingly there would be some people who might consider this a conservative position. The program of Jesus and the idea of love has become so diluted in our world that we are able to conceive issuing it from a gun or via carpet bombing. We profess to follow universal love in the police force and the army despite making oaths to follow orders first. We confess to follow universal love while not sharing our wealth - living like gluttons while others starve. We confess to follow it while buying the products of modern slavery, while profiting from that slavery with what we save at the counter or even what we make on the sharemarket. We confess to following it while protecting our luxurious standard of living over the environment. We confess it and nothing changes.

Or as Tolstoy points out ;

...as soon as it (the Law of Love) ceases to be an immovable law, its beneficence disappears and the doctrine of love is reduced to fruitless teaching, not modifying in any way the mode of life that is founded on violence. By contrast, the true Christian doctrine, making of the law of love a rule permitting no exceptions, in this way rules out the possibility of any violence, and cannot in consequence help but condemn all regimes which are founded on it.

It is exactly this significance of Christianity that was hidden from men by false Christianity, because the latter acknowledges love not as a supreme law, but, in the manner of all previous religions, only as one of the rules of conduct, to be usefully observed only when circumstances do not prevent it.

Tolstoy is amazing because he somehow reads Love like a child. I don’t know by what grace he manages it. If it truly is a Christian grace it is so sadly lacking in the historical practice of Christianity that it makes it all the more remarkable.

The entire book is downloadable for free from http://www.archive.org/details/lawofloveandthel001362mbp  Honestly I could just quote the whole thing. And at only a hundred pages there’s no reason to be intimidated by Tolstoy’s name. Please, please give it a go. I’ll be reviewing it more thoroughly when I’ve gotten over how great it is.

My particular reason for posting this immediately is Tolstoys essential message to the 99% movement and the Occupy Melbourne protestors and me;

Men, whether they submit or refuse to submit to governmental authority, never know and can never know what form this future state will take.

Don’t worry about not having a mapped out set of solutions. Love one another. Love even your enemies. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Now that’s a manifesto.



*I realise some people who know me may be astonished by how "Goddy" this piece is. I don't believe in the metaphysical claims of Christianity. However I will learn as much as I can from any Christian, Buddhist, Atheist, Jew, Hindu etc who is out-loving me. Absolutely. Using their language is a sign of respect to ones teacher. In Tolstoys case that respect is well earned.

The 99% Manifesto.

There’s something that shits me as a legacy of my lapsed political activism. It’s when the constituents of a representative movement, (the unemployed, gay men, whatever the movement) talk about what the movement needs to do before they will join it.

The latest example of this is the 99% movement. There are a chorus of voices, it seems, demanding that “they” articulate some demands and produce a model for change before “I” will listen to them. News flash; political change is not like television. You don’t flick through channels for what you want and whinge when there’s nothing to watch. You actually create it.

So I thought to myself maybe I should have a go at drafting this much demanded manifesto. I’m somewhere in the 99%. I can string a sentence together.

On the other hand, I am singularly unqualified as I have no t.v. and hardly ever listen to news radio. I mostly read books published at least fifty years ago, unless they are contemporary books about events older than that. Current affairs ain’t my thing. Blogging and even more recently Facebook is bringing me into contact with shorter news cycles but it’s a slow pick up. Bah, that’s negative talk. Let’s do it anyway.

The 99% manifesto.

1% of the world, it is increasingly apparent to us (the remainder) that we give you more than you give us. The size of the violin played for your sad day dwarfs the violin played for all the refugees of the world. Your birthday cakes are larger than the ones even bakers have. Meanwhile we plumb your toilets, nanny your kids and put food on your table. We make your profits.

1% of the world, we can see that you have no fear, not even the slightest concern that, failing a light aeroplane crash, your children will not also be a part of the 1%. They can be coke addicts and go on to buy the Presidency of the United States. Meanwhile the rest of us have no fear that our children will make it into the 1%. Instead we live in fear that unless we do everything right (or even then) our children will be a lot worse off than us. In fact for the vast majority of us that would mean imprisoned or dead.

1% of the world, these differences are so exaggerated that quite frankly we can no longer relate to you. We feel reasonably confident that you are not trying to relate to us either. Neither of us are people to each other. It’s worth pausing to mourn that fact. As a species we have lost 1% of our humanity. That would be you.

1% of the world, we do not intend to follow you into inhumanity. We have our own divisions. A percentage of us live in abject poverty. A percentage of us own more than one house. A percentage of us go to elite schools. A percentage of us can’t read. Those of us closer to you in privilege and opportunity pledge NOT to try in vain to join your class. We pledge to stop our aspirational nonsense that only feeds your importance. Instead we will be relating to the rest of the 99% as fellow people.

1% of the world, if you have what we need to relate to each other as fellow people, we will be taking it. Don’t panic. We can do without your mansion on a hill, your backyard swimming pools and tennis courts, even your personal automobile. Just let’s cut the crap. You don’t get to “own” all the farmland. You don’t get to “own” public transport or a monopoly on roads or a patent on our genes. Those things were never going to fly. (And you don’t get to own Federation Square.)

1% of the world, the first thing we will be taking back is our attention. Next will be our labour, our time, the focus of our education, the purpose of our industry, and our lives in your conflicts, but first it is our attention. We can’t do anything until we do that. We have a lot to talk to each other about and following your antics is only a distraction. This is therefore our last communication.

99% of the world, let’s talk.

__________________________________________________

Okay, the above manifesto reveals a couple of things. One is that I am uneasy about a movement that ignores my privelage in relation to others. I am not a member of the 1% by a long shot, however I am pretty comfortable in my estimation. Hence I want to shift the emphasis onto how we treat each other rather than how the 1% treat us. I don’t think this shift is really what the 99% movement sounds like in name, so yes I am hijacking it.

Secondly I truly believe that the way we are relating to each other – when we put our luxuries above others needs – is not “natural”. I think it’s actually inhuman. In order to justify it we have to dehumanise those in need but I think we only succeed in dehumanising ourselves. There’s no doubt that the 1% do this from the simplest to the most extreme ways. More importantly we allow our governments to do it for them, enforcing the eviction of those who can’t pay their rent while entitling the ultra-rich to possess entire inner city towers. However in smaller ways I do the same. In the process I am making myself into a social alien to the rest of the human species.

Thirdly the irreverent tone of this manifesto should reveal that I am NOT saying that the 99% movement or Occupy (Insert City) really have to have a coherent justification for non-violent actions. Quite frankly I would rather a week of protesting without any point over another week of shopping without any point. The Occupy Melbourne Protest was peaceful, welcoming, democratic, shared its food and created a space where people could meet across economic classes. On the downside it disrupted a small cluster of upmarket eateries. The Spring Racing Carnival by comparison is drunken, violent, unsharing and uncaring and no-one demands it have a clear manifesto. The Spring Racing Carnival is justified because it’s fun (or addiction) for those who participate even though that fun disrupts others; the streets of Melbourne run with spew during it. Occupy Melbourne, although I missed it, looked like my kind of fun instead. Minus the police of course.