Going Down to Cuba

I may be sounding a little more left than usual today – but I’ve never understood how a political system can be feared. The ‘West’ has spent the better part of a century struggling with superpowers like China and Russia, based largely on their embrace of non-Democratic governance. In defence of American-style democracy, we have been taught that Socialism is bad – and Communism is downright evil. Applying elements of morality, of wrong and right to a system of organising society is illogical to say the least. What’s worse is that this poorly thought out premise has been used as a driver to key moments in history – directly during the Cold War and notably by proxy in Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea and Cuba. While these failed projects are largely confined to dusty history books (certainly unread by the Bush-Cheney marauders), the Caribbean island of Cuba remains under siege.

Modern Cuban history is defined by the intervening hand of the United States. In 1952, the US backed the coup of military strongman Fulgencio. Batista summarily cancelled the scheduled elections (in which he was losing badly) and ruled over a “corrupt and oppressive” regime for the next 7 years. His ‘presidency’ was marked by close ties to the American Mafia (organised crime, gambling, brothels etc), the amassing of a personal fortune, and ongoing support of the US government. It should come as no surprise that he was ultimately overthrown by Cuban dissidents – including t-shirt adorning Che Guevara, and our old mate Fidel Castro. Fidel, as many of you will know, went on to rule Cuba for nigh on 50 years – surviving the botched (US-initiated) Bay of Pigs invasion back in 1961, the brink of nuclear war the year after, and numerous (would you believe 638?) CIA assignation attempts. He implemented a socialist state, based on Marxist-Leninist Communism – cancelling multi-party elections and giving the State control of property and infrastructure.

As a result, Cubans enjoy free life-time health care, education (and an accordingly high literacy rate), as well as heavily subsidised food, housing and utilities. In response, the US imposed a commercial, economic, and financial embargo of Cuba, which (remarkably) remains in place today. The embargo has since become a US law, with the stated goal of encouraging democratisation and improving human rights. Clearly, Communism is not all sunshine and lollipops (or we’d all be doing it) – Cubans queue for food staples and endure frequent shortages. Black market trading is rife, and fruit and vegetables are a newly acquired luxury. As a matter of their Dictatorship, rather than their Communism, they are also not allowed access to computers, are denied free speech, and dissidents are imprisoned, tortured, and occasionally summarily executed.

With that said, I maintain that Communism is nothing to fear in itself. Its spread cannot be contained militarily. Democracy – especially the corrupt, Capitalist style perpetuated by the US is not necessarily to be aspired to (I personally favour benevolent Monarchy, held to account by periodic revolution!). The Cuban Embargo is unjust, collectively punishing an innocent population. It isolates Cubans further, and (just like the Israeli blockade of Palestine) provides a go-to excuse for anti-US sentiment. Obama, disappointingly, has eased restrictions, but failed to lift the ban. As an ongoing symbol of US colonialism and Goliath-David bullying, I wish that he had the fortitude to push further. I’ll leave you with Jackson Browne’s thoughts on the matter – his song sparking my interest in the first place.

No Excuse for Ignorance

Thinking back on it, I was a young man with a very fixed set of poorly thought out ideas. Not many of them would be popular with my current Administration. Hell, my younger self may even have found his arrogant ass on my assassination short list. While it’s a relief in itself to have softened many of my positions (and hardened a few others), it got me thinking about the cause. The boiled down, no bullshit explanation: information. As I got older, not only did I become exposed to a whole range of people with new ideas (hippies, feminists, Jehovah's Witnesses… you name it), but the internet arrived – and with it, unlimited information.

I was lucky enough to be born into the information age - the ‘internets’ went mainstream just as I got to uni, and by the time I left, it was hard to believe I ever lived without it. Nearly a decade later, we are flooded with data – any crackpot with a PC can start his own fake Administration – and it’s becoming harder and harder to separate the good stuff from the crap. With my own evolution in mind, I recommend adding the following bookmarks to your browser, and hopefully some new ideas to your schema:

1. The Daily Beast; I’ll freely admit to getting most of my news from Jon Stewart, maybe with an occasional sprinkling of New York Times (any left-er, and I’d be one of those crazy Obama Socialists… I know). I do try and get some balance by regularly getting some Daily Beast in my life. They generally trend a little left too – but entertain the idea of balance (they let nut-bags like Tucker Carlson write stuff). Madeline Albright is a contributor - but so is Sarah Palin, on occasion. For the record, Christopher Buckley is my personal favourite.

2. Al Jazeera (English); Now this is my true balancing force – and when I finally come to power, I’m going to beam it into all your homes in place of the 6-7pm crap that passes for news on Channel 7 and 9. They gained notoriety for broadcasting Osama’s video messages and are generally accused of perpetuating terrorist propaganda. In reality, they remain one of the most independent media sources in the Middle East. They have an Arab-centric view – which couldn’t be more different to most of ours – I defy you to read it and not learn something.

3. 3 Quarks Daily; I like this page most of all, mostly because the vast majority of it goes straight over my head. Its basic idea is to distil away the crap and post links to interesting pages in “the areas of science, design, literature, current affairs, art, and anything else [they] deem inherently fascinating”. I like to stop by and read an article I would not have otherwise searched for and which otherwise would not make the mainstream press. They’re not all winners – but stumbling on the occasional gem makes it all worthwhile.

That said, there is no longer any reason to perpetuate the set of ideas that you were raised with. The world has become a very small place. Challenge your perceptions, preferably with a first hand source, and see if they still stack up. Think Israel is blameless in their conflict with Palestine? Watch a 90 second clip of Palestinians smuggling cooking oil and medical supplies across the blockade – and see if your position doesn’t soften. I’m not saying my leftist meanderings are the only way (or necessarily correct), I’m just saying you no longer have an excuse not to know better.

Preferred Prime Minister

One of my favourite mortal enemies has returned to the front pages, and so I wake from my posting-slumber. Tony Abbott has returned to the forefront of Australian politics and he has brought my rage with him. While the media collectively swoon over their latest iteration of the straight-talking everyman, I felt the need to offer a reminder of the cold black heart that drives this one.

Back in 2006 when my aspirations for higher office were first made public, I eagerly seized on the first major benefit of my hypothetic presidency: three free assassinations. At that time, I had no hesitation in penning my first nomination, The Honourable Tony Abbott MP. Without recapping too heavily, he stands directly opposed to apparently all of my Administrations positions – as a devout conservative (Catholic) he spouts the expected drivel. Over a year later, with Abbott’s foot lodged firmly down his own throat, my offer was repeated. At the time, my only solace was that he was one of many strands forming the noose that was slowly tightening around Howard’s neck.

Unfortunately, in the aftermath of Kevin’07 and Howard’s demise, Abbott survived. He sensibly dodged the poison chalice that is the re-bound leadership - waiting until Turnbull had steered the Libs to relatively higher ground – before pouncing. On December 1 last year, he slithered his way to the party’s highest post by the underwhelming margin of 42-41 votes. Staggeringly, his springboard to victory was an increasingly popular one among his cronies on the Right: Global Warming Denial. His opposition to the governments (flawed, yet promising) Emissions Trading Scheme was just the populist stance he required – ignoring that fact that his own position was later described by Turnbull as “bullshit”. Eloquently put.

Since that time, Abbott has been particularly offensive to Australian women, counselling them on the value of their virginity (thoughtful), their ironing technique (charming) and describing Deputy PM Julia Gillard’s grin as “shit-eating” (classy). Worst of all, Abbott has promoted the bumbling Barnaby Joyce to the finance portfolio – a move that has left me speechless with disbelief. We all get collectively dumber every time Barnaby speaks and it destroys my faith in democratic governance that a man of his calibre can rise to such a post. Despite the clumsy start, compounding his own thinly veiled ultra-conservatism, Abbott is experiencing an extended honeymoon and currently winning in some preferred PM polls.

For me, it comes back to the type of leader we want for our country – the ‘good bloke’ the media seem to crave, or a serious, intelligent human. Currently, we have a thoughtful (ok nerdy) policy wonk, who speaks Mandarin and makes measured, logical statements. I guess in many ways that makes him ‘out of touch with the common man’ and not first on my invite list for a night on the beers – but isn’t that exactly what we want our PM to be?

Let them come

I’ve never thought the issue of asylum seekers, or ‘boat people’ was all that complex. There are plenty of places in the world at the moment where people are getting bombed, or systematically killed off by their government – and it makes good sense for them to come here (by whatever means they can manage). It seems straight forward that we should be able to process them efficiently and humanely, accepting genuine refugees and deporting the imposters. This was as true back in 2006 as it is now. That immigration policy is so hard to enact here in Australia is no doubt due to the logic-free fear mongering that forms the basis of the public debate.

Let’s get a couple of things clear. First, the number of asylum seekers that Australia accepts is capped at about 10,000 – a relatively generous commitment by international standards, but still a drop in the ocean amongst our 22,000,000 inhabitants (this is also in the context of the 300,000 new migrants expected to arrive legally this year). Worse still, the recent media blitz concerning the ‘waves of boat people’ focused on just 78 Sri Lankans, fleeing the end of their civil war and systematic hunting by their government. Amongst the estimated 20-odd million refugees worldwide our ‘problem’ is definitely all style and no substance.

Second, much of the political backlash felt by the Rudd government has been due to the perception that he is somehow softer on refugees (perish the thought) and that the boat-flood gates are only just opening. While boat numbers dropped precipitously from a peak in 2001 (5516 refugees), coinciding with Howard’s Pacific Solution, there haven been about 1500 arrivals so far in 2009. While I agree that removing the deterrent effect of up to 3 years mandatory detention on a remote pacific island has contributed – it is surely the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and the crushing of the ethnic Tamils by the Sri Lankan government that is the chief cause of this increase. Some 800,000 Tamils have been displaced by the fighting (and government routing) with 150,000 pouring into camps in neighbouring India alone.

As with many of these apparently hot button issues, it is easy to side passionately with the political Right (and with intolerance) – until you have a single moment of real empathy. It’s easy to be against gay marriage, until your daughter is born a lesbian (see Dick Cheney) and easier still to be pro-war until your son is shipped to Afghanistan. Here in Australia we have the supreme luxury of judging the boat people, free as we are of religious or political persecution, or the risk of stepping on a land mine on the way to work. When you’re next getting your nightly serve of migrant-invasion propaganda, wonder what lengths you’d go to keep your family safe.

State of the Art

Posting has not been as feverish around the Fake White House lately as I would’ve liked. Blame Obama and K-Rudd. It’s harder to be knife-edge vigilant when operations are now being conducted with sanity and moderation. Sure, both men are still guilty of mis-steps now and then – but the malice has disappeared from our governance. Obama is the Man of the People we’ve waited for, and Rudd is boring but generally a force of good (which is a nice change). Content that we’ve been given a reprieve from the fast train to Hell, the fever pitch has subsided.

Still, I’ve not quite gone into a coma. In fact, last week when the Hilltop Hoods released their 6^th studio album I was ready and waiting for it. The Adelaide hip-hoppers (Pressure, Suffa and DJ Debris) have been chiselling away at success since the early 90s, but started to make serious waves with The Calling (2003) and The Hard Road (2006). They do some party songs: Dumb Enough (“if I forgot your name I’m sorry – you’re probably pretty ugly”), What a Great Night (“put your hands up if you’re not too drunk to stand up”); chronicles of their slow rise to fame: The Hard Road (“I was going nowhere like a children’s letter to God”) and occasionally some political/message stuff: Circuit Breaker (“John Howard knows the taste of George’s dick!”).

The latest album, State of the Art (2009), has a similar mix of songs and the classic Hoods sound. But this is not a music review – and my heightened interest in the new album is due largely the standout last track: Fifty in Five. MC Suffa chronicles fifty years of history in a five minute track – covering off on politics, pop culture, current events, the War(s) on Terror… it’s really an epic. The song has played over and over in my head since I heard it, and as a conscientious President, I thought you should all be exposed to its power. Enjoy the clip below. I recommend reading along with the lyrics, the first time, for the full effect.

Torture – Plain and Simple

After some years in the media wilderness, torture and its ethics have returned to the spotlight. Following the recent change in Administration, the Bush spin machine – once so efficient and clinical – is dead. Nuanced differences between ‘enhanced interrogation’ and torture are over and it’s time to take stock of the damage done. After some heated in-fighting, Obama de-classified a series of memo’s which amounted to Bush administration directives to the CIA allowing them to torture al-Qaida and other suspects held at Guantánamo and secret detention centres round the world. After eight years of secrecy and slight-of-hand, this kind of transparency makes me kind of nervous.

For context, the public have known about enhanced interrogation since Bush coined the phrase in 2002; a euphemism encompassing a range of aggressive and questionable practices – and equating very literally to torture (Bush continued past this time to insist that “we do not torture” – content to split linguistic hairs). At that time after a lengthier than usual rant, I concluded that while the appropriate position on torture was to avoid it (and to grab what little moral high ground was left) – the Bushies should at the very least be honest about the lengths they were going to, “to keep us safe”. Well they didn’t and they weren’t. And now, someone should answer for it.

I’m not actually sure what to be most angry about, wading through the recent disclosures. Maybe that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times (so much for tricking him into simulated drowning – I think he’s on to you!), that the frequency of torture spiked just when the US were looking to justify their invasion of Iraq, or that Cheney and Rumsfeld really were the black hearted sons-of-bitches that we feared they were (don’t even get me started on that prick Alberto Gonzales…). While Obama is content to “look forward”, I want to see all the Bushies that dragged us down into the moral quagmire to be held accountable. If it’s good enough for Clinton, it’s good enough for Bush – bring on the show trials.

While we all wait for that not to happen, I can recommend some reading/viewing to give this whole torture thing a face you can see: 1) The 2007 Jake Gyllenhaal movie, Rendition. It tries to give a sense of the complexity of the torture question – but confirmed for me the obvious dangers of such primitive techniques: getting the wrong guy, and the validity of his torture-induced testimony; 2) Enemy Combatant: A British Muslim's Journey to Guantanamo and Back, a book written by former detainee Moazzam Begg. I defy you to read it and not feel empathy for the way he was treated – even before getting to Gitmo. Treating any human this way, guilty or innocent, murderer or terrorist is abhorrent and 3) A recent essay by Atul Gawande appearing in The New Yorker. In summary, solitary confinement will send a regular man crazy in about a month. Three tops. It’s chilling. While it focuses on the use of isolation in the US prison system (it’s rife) – I couldn’t help but think of poor old José Padilla, held in solitary for 3 and a half years, until he finally cracked…

Tipping Point

The US is a notorious chain-dragger on a range of progressive issues. They seem to have a disproportionate number of evolution deniers, extremist pro-lifers and ‘traditionalists’ (read: homophobes). Increasingly, these issues are being decided in state and federal courts and finding their way onto ballot propositions (like Prop 8). While there have been setbacks (and there will be more), I get the feeling that on same-sex marriage at least, the scales may well be reaching tipping point.

While Proposition 8 was passed in California, effectively banning gay marriage in that state – Massachusetts and Connecticut continued granting marriages to same sex couples. This week, Vermont became the first state to pass laws to legalise same sex marriage. The legislature overturned the governor’s veto with overwhelming votes in both houses (100-49 and 23-5). So, 3 New England states (of the 50) support gay marriage – that’s hardly a turning tide, you might say – especially when 29 states have constitutional amendments explicitly barring the recognition of same-sex marriage…

What gives me hope on this issue is the recent battleground of mid-western Iowa. On April 3 their Supreme Court ruled the state's ban on same sex marriage was unconstitutional – a clear victory in this war. Still, my interest was not only in the win – but in the arguments used by the prosecutors. Out-loud, in a courtroom, gay marriage opponents argued to continue the ban in order to: protect tradition, promote a good environment for children, promote procreation, promote stability in opposite-sex relationships, and save the state money. Let that sink in for a minute.

Now while, Judge Robert Hanson had the good sense to dismiss this arguments as insufficient, I’m pleased that these reasons were articulated – as I find them especially damaging to the opponents of same sex marriage. The prosecutors moved beyond simple religious (God Intended It) reasoning and skated out onto some very thin ice. Applied to the whole community, will marriage be denied to couples who create a ‘bad’ environment for children, or who choose not to (or are unable to) procreate? And are we seriously expected to contemplate that gay marriage undermines the stability of opposite-sex relationships? Please.

Overall, it was a pretty farcical case, which I hope does irrevocable damage to anti-gay crusaders everywhere. The stated reasons are based largely on a number of false gay stereotypes and could not possibly be digested by any self respecting individual (or court). The heterosexual community leaves in a giant glass mansion on this one, and I strongly suggest keeping these stones un-thrown.

The Limits of Tolerance

The Catholic Church and I have an understanding. I let them continue to minister to their estimated 1.131 billion adherents and in exchange I expect them to keep their God-bothering to themselves. It’s like religious Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.  Admittedly, this has always been a tenuous relationship – they don’t care for atheists, and I’m not a fan of unabashed, arbitrarily administered social oppression. Still, we try. Unfortunately, His Holiness Joseph Ratzinger has been pushing the friendship lately, with a slate of proclamations and deeds that extend the limits of my considerable tolerance. I’m of a mind to put the Vatican On Notice, and here’s why:

1. Out loud Holocaust Denial

Look, I know that there are a percentage of nut-bags out there that insist that the Holocaust was manufactured by historians to increase sympathy for Jews. It’s not a new argument (though it never gets any more logical). Usually though, there’s an agenda: President Ahmadinejad needs to feed on anti-Semitic sentiment to distract his subjects from his ineptitude, while terror groups like Hamas and The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood espouse it as a matter of course in their fight against the Zionists. Still, one expects the Vatican (who stayed ‘neutral’ during the actual event) to have the sense be keep inflammatory rhetoric to a minimum on the subject. Reinstating excommunicated Bishop Richard Williamson – who popped up on Swedish TV claiming “that two to three hundred thousand Jews perished… but none of them by gas chambers” didn’t seem like a super smart play. The Pope described the reinstatement of a Holocaust Denier as "an unforeseen mishap”.

2. An Unnecessarily Rigid Pro-life Agenda

I also know that being a staunch Catholic (or even Christian) is often synonymous with a zero tolerance pro-life stance. I’ve never been one for issuing decrees on personal issues such as these – but in any case, it’s nice to think that in exceptional circumstances even one’s most deeply held views can be flexible enough to allow reason to prevail. Let’s say, if a 9-year old girl was impregnated after her step-father raped her – she would be at least be entitled to avoid giving birth to her own siblings? Right? Well, when it happened in Brazil this month, the Catholic Church excommunicated the girl, her family and the doctors who performed her abortion. As told by Time Magazine: "God's laws," said the archbishop, dictate that abortion is a sin and that transgressors are no longer welcome in the Roman Catholic Church. Evidently, an open and shut case.

3. Treating Abstinence-Only Sex Education Like a Real Policy

Abstinence-Only Sex-Education is not effective at reducing anything, except the levels of Government funding going to Actual Sex Education. According to the British Medical Journal there is "no evidence" that abstinence-only sex education programs "reduce risky sexual behaviours, incidence of sexually transmitted infections, or pregnancy" – a small detail that did not prevent the Bush White House from spending exhaustively on it. Now, while Bristol Palin and I agree that it’s a failed ‘policy’ – Pope Ratzinger disagrees, arguing that it has a primary role in the global fight against HIV/AIDS. He claims that “[AIDS] cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems”. Indeed.

Such as it is then, I’m at the end of my tether with dear Ratzinger. I’m of course not a fan of organised religion at the best of times – but the Vatican seems to be going the extra yard lately to alienate friend and foe alike. In the wake of hundreds of years of corruption and greed, decades of child abuse scandals and an ongoing refusal to join us in the 21^st century -  it makes a President wonder what it will take to bring the whole sham down.