Courtesy Michael Leunig and The Age

Dubya's brand new War on Climate Change

Let's forget about Eyerack, the new improved war is on climate change, and George W. Bush wants to include John W. Howard. Or so he said in an afterthought. Recently acquainted with the term "greenhouse gas emissions" thanks to his flatulent dog, Mr Bush has released "a plan to tackle global warming" to show foreign varmints he's no dope. As for Umeruhca, it "would set its own, looser goals for reducing emissions, but allow individual nations to develop different strategies for meeting them." In other words, who cares what them fureigners do as long as the USofA c'n fiddle while the planet burns.

In the Land of Oz, John Howard's specially commissioned carbon emissions task force has reported just what the PM wanted to hear: 1) We'll all be rooned if you try to save the planet now; 2) Wait until 2012 when it might have all gone away; 3) Nuclear is the way to go.

As a feller name of "worldforpeace" said in The Age online today, "Maybe Mr Howard is waiting to see what will happen when the Mayan calendar finishes in 2012."

At any rate the task force report allows him to sit on his hands and plead increased electricity prices and a generally stuffed economy if he were to do something about helping to save the planet.

Meanwhile, wouldn't you just know it, the Climate Institute has criticized the report, saying the recommended time frame (2012) is too long. Says Erwin Jackson of the Climate Institute:

"Why wait five years? Potentially this could just be a smoke screen for further delay, the climate system isn't waiting for us to make a decision about reducing emissions so why should we?"

And did we expect a report stating otherwise? The old saw -- never commission a report or instigate a Royal Commission unless you know what the outcome will be -- holds true as always.

Coalition's fan club: old fogeys and dumb shits

The elderly and poorly educated have secured the Coalition its hold on government in an electorate increasingly influenced by issues thrown up in the course of the election campaign.

Macquarie University researchers attribute the Coalition's success with these groups to John Howard's strategy of centralising his media strategy on talkback radio.

So begins Talkback tactic wins PM his voters by David Uren. This is the voter demographic that always supports conservative/totalitarian political parties. And their favourite forum these days is commercial radio talkback (not the ABC), where frightened old fools and the malleably ignorant are encouraged to vent their spleen against the evolution of the species.

But even they, it seems, are getting sick and tired of old Mr Sick and Tired. To bring them around, John Howard will have to stop trying to play catch-up on policies he's unable to comprehend and do something to cattle-prod the old fogey's back to the state of fear their meaningless lives have left them with. As for the "poorly educated," he merely needs to ramp up the dogwhistling on racism and xenophobia. Perhaps in the late stages of this endless phoney election campaign, he can whip them up against Muslims. Better yet, both can be whipped into shape by feeding them the line that they'll be paying too much for electricity to save their children from climate change.

Apology is a symbol that will heal

In a recent editorial, The Australian newspaper, Australia's answer to the Stalin era Pravda, showed once again how the conservative right wing knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

In the wisdom of their desiccated souls they saw fit to ridicule the idea of an apology to Aboriginal people:

… it is distressing that while most Australians have shifted their focus to practical reconciliation, the federal ALP is still committed to a formal apology to the Stolen Generation. The time for apologies is over.

I doubt seriously that most Australians are all that enamoured with John Howard's pragmatism; if they were the hope for a more humane nation symbolised by Kevin Rudd would not be reflected in the polls.

Pragmatism is fine as far as it goes, but human beings need to believe that they are more than mere pushers of Abacus seeds. Symbols are important to the well-being of both individuals and nations.

The symbol of a flag and a national anthem in times of war is one that brings about great outpourings of emotion.

On an individual level, saying you are sorry to another for a slight or some other transgression may not be easy, but it works, and everyone involved is relieved.

The symbol of an apology for the Stolen Generation will have a tremendously cathartic affect on not only the Aboriginal people, but those Australians who feel that life should be a celebration instead of nothing more than the rote accumulation of pay cheques and gadgets. It is an act of the heart, something missing in this country for eleven years. First the heart, then the pragmatics.

The long overdue apology to the Aboriginal nation is a first step towards the maturing of the entire nation.

And the conservatives simply cannot understand it.

-- Tommy Pendejo