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Fidel Castro: Political Pundit?

October 12th 2008 22:06
In an election cycle such as this one, where the chips are all on the table and it is open for anyone to take a swipe at, one of the by-products of extensive media coverage is to become familiar with the pundits who tell you what to think about what just happened. It is a factor of campaign coverage and you need to understand it because if you don’t understand their background and their motivations then you can’t separate the fact from the spin. If you didn’t know Bill Kristol’s father was one of the pioneers of the neoconservative movement and Bill himself is the editor of a conservative publication, you might take his railing against Obama at face value. Similarly, if you didn’t know that Bill Maher was a raging liberal, further left than Karl Marx, you wouldn’t know that his ramblings about John McCain and Sarah Palin were incredibly exaggerated and at times delusional. In short, it is important to know the pundits and not just listen to them. If you know them, you know why they are saying what they are saying. And once you know that, you are halfway to halfway cutting through the spin. What you need to know now is that there is a new pundit you might not have seen in awhile, although it seems like he has been around forever. He isn’t based in the United States, although he has a very good understanding of the history of American international relations. He is, suffice it to say, considerably left of centre in terms of his politics. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the newest pundit in the U.S. Presidential Election of 2008: Fidel Castro.


Fidel has been fairly quiet in recent times; particularly since he gave up running the country and let his brother Raul take over. There has been speculation that he has been dead all along, that he is secretly still pulling the strings or that he may be alive and well sitting on a beach somewhere enjoying his first time off in a few decades. No one really knew though, so it was good at least to hear from him in the respect that we finally knew that he must have been down on the beach twiddling his thumbs and wondering how he could still poke America with a stick now that he wasn’t the leader of Cuba anymore. His decision, in the end, was to attack one of the institutions the Americans hold so dearly and attach to it an aura of negativity. Yes, Fidel Castro said that millions of Americans could not imagine Barack Obama winning the election and moving into the White House, and his theory is proven because why? Because the name of the Executive Mansion is the ‘WHITE’ House. Now we all know that I love a good pun. In fact, it is my overuse of puns in day to day life that may have put the final nail in the coffin for what was once the height of humour. But suggesting that using the name ‘White House’ is somehow proof of the inherent racism of the American people is beyond a pun: it is pure Fidel pot-stirring.


Fidel went on to say that he was surprised Obama hadn’t been assassinated yet, and while that may feed into some of the paranoia Fidel himself feels about the number of plans the Americans had to kill him, he does have a point. A sense of surprise, or inevitability, about that outcome is present amongst the population at large. It may have something to do with low expectations and contemporary depictions of ‘redneck’ America, but Fidel isn’t the only one that thinks this is a distinct possibility. That is one of the benefits of having a crackpot Communist dictator as a political pundit: he can say a lot that sounds completely mental. But he can also say the outrageous things that people in the mainstream can’t, but that people outside the mainstream were all thinking already. He probably wants to give Obama a few tips. If anyone knows how to avoid a well-planned conspiracy, it’s Fidel. And it is well timed too. Just the other day civil rights icon John Lewis accused McCain of stoking the fires of racial hatred against Obama. This is the same John Lewis that McCain listed as one of his personal heroes at the Saddleback Forum a few months ago now. Whether it is true or not is irrelevant. Most of the time, in Presidential politics, it isn’t what you mean that counts: it’s what other people think you mean.

Of course, Castro took a swipe at McCain/Palin as well. He mocked McCain’s low grades at the Naval Academy and said Palin knew nothing about… well, anything really. It was a bit of a weak swipe for someone as experienced as Fidel. He has been getting under the skin of American politicians for half a century. His attacks on McCain and Palin just lacked that oomph that could have really got John angry. Better luck next time Fidel. And there will be a next time. You see, Fidel is a compulsive irritant. Until he dies, he will be sticking the barbs into American politicians, trying to get a reaction and trying to get the big brother of the Western Hemisphere to bite back. So he will continue to be our favourite whack-job political pundit from across the water. Most of the time he will be provocative for the sake of being provocative. Other times though, if you listen hard enough, he may just be right.
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Oh dear. If you thought the first McCain/Obama stoush was a bit soft, and you thought that Palin and Biden didn’t trade enough barbs then I think today is the day you are rubbing your hands together with glee. Boys and girls, today is the day that the gloves come off and two candidates who can barely stand to look at each other will have a showdown the likes of which has not been seen since Rosie O’Donnell went histrionic at Elisabeth Hasselbeck on ‘The View’. At least those two were separated by a long desk. This one might actually come to blows if someone isn’t careful. Boys and girls, prepare yourself for one of the most brutal debates in recent Presidential history. I give you Barack Obama versus John McCain.

The last debate was, as the candidates themselves admit, relatively emotionally neutral. McCain made a few scathing attacks on Barack Obama, but he maintained a cool dispassion for the man bordering on being dismissive. Obama, on the other hand, struggled to assert himself as he tried in vain to counter McCain’s punches and land some of his own. But, for the most part, it was civil. Obama agreed with McCain half of the time, after all, and it is hard to viciously attack someone whose central point you agree with. I know that was only a matter of days ago. But since then there has been a major shift in the campaign dynamics on both sides. The economy isn’t a strong point of the McCain campaign, so it is understandable he would want to switch the focus during a time that is watching his short time as the frontrunner evaporate. But the problem for McCain is that the economy is so pervasive at the moment that it is dominating the news cycle. People are genuinely affected by it and want to hear more about how the rescue will be undertaken. Some days it seems like House Minority Leader John Boehner is getting more screen time than John McCain, so the McCain camp had to figure out a way to divert attention from their lack of presence in a way that would frame Obama in the worst possible light. That is probably why the candidate uttered two of the most poignant words in electioneering, words that change the face of the campaign and shake it up dramatically: “Go negative”.

It is easy to go negative with Obama. He leaves himself open to it by having personal associations with some pretty dodgy people. It doesn’t help that slumlord and long-time Obama friend and backer Tony Rezco is due to be sentenced for his dodgy dealings sometime before Election Day. It doesn’t help that Obama has been obscuring his relationship with former domestic terrorist William Ayers, who he first said he didn’t really know, then he did, then he was a fundraiser, then he was a personal friend, then he had not seen him in years, then he saw him a few months ago. As they say, the cover-up is usually worse than the crime itself. Connect those two genuine criminals up with other figures of scorn like Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Father Michael Pfleger and there is more than enough ammunition for the McCain camp to go to town on. They have questioned whether or not Obama is a “friend of terrorists”. They have pointed to Tony Rezco and talked about how he used his dodgy dealings to Obama’s benefit. They have pointed to Wright and Pfleger and said “Are these the people you want having the ear of the President?” It is your typical negative campaigning in action. And Obama really doesn’t like it.

His response in the negative campaigning game has been less focussed on actual incidences than on general dishonourable characteristics. He has made mention is McCain’s role in the Keating Five scandal but since McCain was unequivocally cleared of any wrongdoing over twenty years ago, there isn’t a lot to be said about it. So Obama has made a point of portraying McCain as a liar, aggressive, irresponsible and dangerous. It is typical negative campaigning fare, but Obama has had to scramble to come up with some way to hit back at the suggestions that his social group may, in fact, be a reflection on his own behaviour. Either way, both camps have launched scathing volleys at each other over the course of the past week, to the point that it has gone beyond typical electioneering. These attacks have been getting nasty. Which is why the debate tonight should be an absolute bottle-rocket.

McCain has a temper, and he has been almost keeping it in check throughout the campaign thus far. The result of tonight all depends on how much Obama bites at him. The format of the debate is a town hall meeting, something McCain is famously good at working in. If Obama was to launch an attack, McCain might use his control of the format to cut him to shreds. Or he might get too angry and come off looking like a madman. While McCain is restraining himself, however, Obama needs to let himself get angry. He was criticised for not defending himself and fighting back against Senator McCain before. This time if McCain attacks, Obama has to let himself get mad and use the aggression to take swipes at him. That way he will stop looking like McCain’s little brother and start looking like a United States Senator. This is going to be a debate about who gets under whose skin the most effectively.

A word of warning to people in the front rows: wear a raincoat, because there may be blood.
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Arrr me heartys, ye be best advised to jump ship from Cap’n Bligh’s vessel. It be rotten to the hull and sinking like a stone right to the very bottom of Davy Jones’ locker! I tell ye, abandon ship and row, row, row as fast as yer arms will take ye!



Ok, I understand that it was International Talk Like A Pirate Day a few weeks ago now (September 19 for those of you keeping track…) but in honour of yet another mutiny against yet another Bligh, I felt it only proper to use the skills I learned on that day. Yes, my fellow sea-dogs, Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has suffered the hard end of a problem that made her great-great-great grandfather famous: she just got mutinied. There is a difference, however. While Captain William Bligh, of ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’ fame was deposed by strength of force at gunpoint and had his ship taken from him, Anna Bligh was rocked by a mutiny less foul. Indooroopilly MP Ronan Lee jumped ship on the weekend to join up with the Greens. The first Cap’n Bligh knew about it? When she saw the press conference where he announced it, side by side with the Greens messiah himself Bob Brown. At least William Bligh’s crew had to decency to point guns at him face to face. Now, the defection of Lee is not going to make a lasting impact on the Labor Government structurally speaking. His defection doesn’t mean that they lose their majority and he wasn’t a Cabinet member whose departure would require a reshuffle. But it is symbolic and the symbolism comes at a bad time for the Cap’n. Her approval ratings are ridiculously low. Lawrence Springborg, or simply ‘the Borg’ as he likes to be known, is steadily climbing on the backs of Labor Party follies to reach the heights of his popularity. The LNP restructure has allayed some of the concerns of city-voters who would not have voted Liberal but will now vote for a LNP member. With an election due sometimes next year, things aren’t looking bright for the Cap’n and the defection of Lee is only further evidence that there is trouble in the ranks.

The Cap’n took the defection fairly personally. Her response was a unique mixture of passive aggression and indignant outrage. She said that he was more than free to exercise his own choice, but went on to call the move a ‘betrayal’. While he insisted that the voters of Indooroopilly elected him for his personal commitment to issues like the environment, Cap’n Bligh begged to differ and claimed that he was elected solely as a member of a Labor Government and that the voters would see straight through the party switch and he would not be elected again. Throwing words like “betrayal” around, it is no wonder that it felt like we were back on the HMS Bounty. The only question is who is the one being put out to see in a lifeboat? Cap’n Bligh or Ronan Lee?

Well, Lee’s move was not the smartest I would suggest. He jumped ship of an incumbent government, which is a bit strange no matter how unlikely it might seem that they will get elected again. He claims it is a split down ideological lines and I tend to agree with him. Genuine disagreement about the issues is one of the only reasons someone would jump ship, to the Greens of all people. There is one other reason that someone would leave an incumbent Government for a party that never has a hope of forming one: he legitimately despises the hierarchy and can’t wait to be rid of them. Again, very understandable. In a sense, Lee put himself in the lifeboat and rowed as far away as possible. This is the reverse of the Mutiny on the Bounty. See, in that one they WANTED the boat and sent the boss off to suffer whatever fate befell him. In this one, the boat is so rotten that the mutiny is about getting far, far away from it. It’s the Cap’n that has been left on the boat to suffer whatever fate befalls her. The ALP are going into the next election as underdogs for the first time in a long time. That is just a fact that the Cap’n is going to need to get her head around. After ten dominant years in government, they will be going into their first election without Peter Beattie to man the helm and keep the ship on a true bearing.

And I am truly sorry Cap’n Bligh, but you ma’am are no Peter Beattie.
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Correct me if I am wrong, but has there ever been a time in Australian history when the Liberal Party has accused a Labor Prime Minister of being in the tank for the big banks? No, I didn’t think so. It’s almost as if we have fallen down the rabbit-hole and found ourselves in Wonderland, where everything is topsy-turvy and the old stereotypes no longer apply. I mean, it’s not so far out of the ordinary to think of Kevin Rudd, the man, as an economic conservative. He told us that he was enough times throughout the 2007 election campaign, trying to piggy-back onto the territory of the John Howard and Peter Costello double-team. But to think of Kevin Rudd, the first Labor Prime Minister of the 21st Century, as someone who is an apologist for the banks. The big tycoons of the banks aren’t exactly the working class type that Labor was created to protect and have consistently supported over the years to the point of bordering on socialism at some parts of its history. Yep. We are definitely in Wonderland.

An apologist for the banks is exactly what Malcolm Turnbull has accused Rudd of being, with what seems like little resistance from the Rudd camp. Self-admittedly, they are in the corner of the banks in this fight. Yesterday the Prime Minister said that while defending the banks may not be the popular thing to do at the moment, it was the “responsible course of action”. But that really doesn’t make it any less weird does it? This kind of support for the banks is the type of thing you would hear coming out of the mouth of a Peter Costello or a John Howard or even a Joe Hockey. Not a Queensland diplomat who has been a member of the Labor Party since he was a teenager. In this case, he is right in any event


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I feel like the moment in ‘Gladiator’, just before Russell Crowe walks into the middle of the Colosseum and can hear the roar of the crowd and feel the anticipation of going head-to-head with his own mortality, knowing that only one man can come out alive. Except this isn’t Russell Crowe going up against a lion, or a band of trained killers. This is much, much worse. This is the one we’ve all been waiting for, the one that we have been chanting for in the stands of the Colosseum as the crowd starts clapping in a steady rhythm and building the anticipation. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Sarah Palin versus Joe Biden.

Most of the joy people got from watching the gladiators going at it in the Colosseum did not come from seeing death and men being torn limb from limb. Most of the excitement came from the tension and the struggle to survive with the hope that man would be able to prevail if he was fast enough or strong enough. In a lot of ways that is what the first and only Vice-Presidential debate will be about when it comes around tomorrow. There are no second chances in this one, so the candidates will be struggling to make sure they land the killer blow, or that if they don’t knock out their opponent they will be trying to ensure that they themselves don’t get laid out flat on their back. Both Palin and Biden have something to prove. In a way, despite their vastly different experience levels, both have become as battle-scarred as each other


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September is a big month for pirates. September 19th is annual Talk Like A Pirate Day, and if you have never heard of that then you have clearly been living under a rock. September also heralded the confirmation of a fourth instalment in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, featuring Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow, another thing you would have heard if you weren’t living under a rock. But did you know that piracy is alive and well? I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t. It is not the romanticised, swash-buckler type of piracy that people seem to find so “sexy”. This is real piracy: raw and unbridled criminality on the high seas. Throw in a rogue nation, chemical weapons and both a Russian and an American warship trying to hunt down Somali pirates and hell, you have got yourself a Coen Brothers movie.

There has been a breakout, in recent months, of Somalian pirates who, using vessels that are fast and small, have been boarding ships on the open seas and doing as their name suggests: stealing, killing and destroying. The pirates aren’t just guys who get in boats and go out to try their luck either. These pirates are highly organised. There is usually a ‘mother-ship’: a large ship that anchors out at see that serves as the home base for the pirates. From there the pirates can launch their smaller boats out to sea and ambush bigger boats, and make it back to a rendezvous point at the mother-ship where they can refuel the small boats that would not usually be able to carry enough fuel to make it from land out that far to the shipping lanes at sea


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What happens when politicians can’t get their act together in time to put a bandaid on a potentially fatal systemic economic wound? That is the question we are faced with this morning, as members of the US House of Representatives failed to pass the $700 billion bailout package overnight. The situation is quite dire. Both people in the industry and your average punters were all expecting the Congress to pass the bailout package to stabilise the situation and restore investor confidence, at least while they figure out what measures they need to put in place to stop this happening again. But alas, that wasn’t to be and now the members of Congress are heading home to their electorates for a few days, not back on Capitol Hill until Thursday. It‘s not exactly the perfect time for the nations lawmakers to go on a break. In this instance the old saying is painfully true: time IS money. Any members with a brain in their skull would be using this time off to stay on the Hill and try to get a deal together that is ready to vote on first thing Thursday morning. But the likelihood they will be able to get a deal off the ground with members of Congress all heading home is pretty unlikely. Which puts us in a very difficult position: Congress is incommunicado until Thursday and it’ll probably be another week after that until there can be any sort of deal to speak of. Wall Street must be pulling its hair out.

That is the danger in a system like the American one where politicians don’t generally tow the party line. All the leaders of both major parties have agreed to the bailout plan. The Administration has agreed to it. But it didn’t past the first hurdle. With a plan this big, there are some concerns about the size of government and using tax payer money to bailout corporation that have gotten into the situation they are in through mismanagement and risky business ventures. Some members of Congress think that it’s the role of the market to adjust itself after a few tosses and turns and convulsions like we are seeing today. Let them stew until it’s over and eventually business will clean itself out and come back bigger and stronger than ever, having learned an important lesson. That is the free market view of things. Other Congressmen that have a view of government that is more conducive to big Federal bailouts don’t agree with the conditions placed on the money, or the lack thereof in some cases. Opposition to the bailout comes from both sides along ideological lines, but it also comes from a somewhat more nefarious front


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Deal or No Deal with the Taliban?

September 28th 2008 23:24
Another week, another secret plan. War seems to bring a lot of things. Death, destruction, displacement... and secrets. Secret tactics, secret weapons and now, it would seem, a secret plan to end the war. Not that pesky little war in Iraq that seems to be going a lot better these days, it’s the other little war. The one that came first and has been getting progressively worse and worse over the past year. Afghanistan. It is a country that has never been defeated by a foreign power. Not Alexander the Great, not the Arabs, not the Russians and so far not the Americans and their allies either. They may have had the Taliban, on the run and pushed back into the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan but as soon as the Americans took their eye off the ball and switched focus to Iraq the Taliban were able to rally their strength and strike back, even going as far as retaking some provinces from American allies left weak without military support. So why do you think the Taliban have approached the allies trying to make a deal to end hostilities? In what universe do the insurgents that are winning a war want to give it all up?

Word has it from sources inside Kabul that high-ranking Taliban figures have approached members of the British Government and the Saudi Arabian leadership in order to negotiate a secret peace process behind closed doors and, fundamentally, around the authority of the Americans. A Taliban leader acting as a go-between has spent the last few months jet-setting between Kabul, Saudi Arabia, several European capitals and the Taliban camps of Pakistan trying to get a deal together that would allow the Taliban out of hiding and give them the ability to re-enter some government positions. This go-between has even shown up at the British Foreign Office and spoken with MI6 personnel to float his ideas


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Malcolm Turnbull Goes To White Castle?

September 25th 2008 22:54
Have you ever heard of a question that has so many possible answers that it is almost not worth asking at all? Because that is the type of situation you find yourself in when you ask yourself what the difference is between Bill Clinton and Malcolm Turnbull? Ah, let me count the ways. But there is one answer that is the first thing that comes to mind. Bill Clinton admitted to smoking marijuana, but said that he did not inhale. Whatever that means. Turnbull, on the other hand, is quite prepared to admit that when he did it he inhaled too. On the Q&A program on ABC last night, Malcolm cut off host Tony Jones before he could even finish asking the question saying, “Yes, yes I did”.

It is a strange phenomenon these days that politicians feel the need to bare their souls about drug use in their pasts, no matter how much or how long ago. More to the point, how come it makes so much news? Malcolm Turnbull using marijuana twenty years ago is one of the top stories of the day today, inexplicably pipping school shootings, economic trauma and government legislation at the post. There are two questions involved here: why is it so important and why is there such a big trend of politicians coming clean on their drug use history? Gone are the days of the politicians feigning righteous indignation when confronted with the question of whether or not they have ever used drugs. These days they clamour to say yes, maybe because they want to appear to be “cool”. Barack Obama admitted to heavy use of cocaine in his youth, and he is the biggest celebrity politician the world has seen in quite some time. Hell, the whole ALP front bench have admitted to being mad for marijuana in their own university days. Why does it play so well with the general public? If you look at the polls most people in Australia would agree that drug use is not something they would like to see in their leaders. Why, then, does it benefit leaders to admit that they used drugs in their youth


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Playing politics or a genuine move of citizenship? That is the question that is flying around the Democratic and Republican camps today as they scramble to respond to calls by John McCain to suspend campaigning while the US struggles to cope with a complete economic crash. As you would imagine, it goes down partisan lines. Republicans say that it is a responsible thing to put the country first and not spend the time diverting attention from a crisis that needs to be put first. Democrats believe quite the reverse, as one would expect. They say that McCain is playing political games with the crisis and is using a halt of campaigning to ‘set Obama up’.

The tricky part of it all is that you can never really know why McCain decided to blindside Obama and make a public call to stop the campaign. It might have been politics like the Obama folk say. Stopping the campaign would undoubtedly put the brakes on Obama’s slow creep back into the front runner position, and would make McCain look like a real statesman showing Obama the ropes of how to act when a nation is in crisis. In that sense it would put him in the position of looking like a real leader and may sway some voters onto his side in the final run-up to polling day. On the other hand, halting the campaign immediately may work against McCain’s best interests. The debate on Friday night would have to be put off, and it is in this forum that he is expected to shine. The debate is specifically on issues of national security and foreign relations, an area that McCain is seen to have an advantage in over Obama and a forum where he can utilise his meetings with world leaders this week to illustrate that while Obama was preparing answers for the debate his team were actually on the ground having real discussions. To put off the debate would risk compromising the bump in the polls he might get from showcasing his international and security credentials


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