Pegasus, I think I know well what you mean: sounds like a broken record, I know. Similar stuff, with similar repetition was also said about children in detention, or the East Timorese, for example.

The problem is that all these issues, but specially war, and the lying to take us into war are such serious issues and touch so many of us so deep, they tend to even dominate other arguments. And some very important things, like Our Democracy and how to get it back, seem to be secondary. Instead, many of us argue, they are all related. Sometimes this is quite obvious as they are simply different symptoms of the same causes, ie: corruption, no ethics, and lack of Democracy. Sometimes, they are a lot more far apart or clouded, even seemingly competing against each other, ie: workers rights here and overseas v/s immigrants rights, etc.

Sometimes I've had some interesting debates about how "activists", "pacifists" and others "political beings" with many other labels can effect change, improve engagement and help out in practical ways, even in elections.

And yet, a lot of so called "activism" can certainly end up alienating more people than getting anyone new involved. That is a key problem (I think) you seem to highlight from a different perspective, and I certainly agree.

The bottom line is, a lot of the time we end up arguing about the 15 or 10% where we disagree, and forget to focus on the specifics, practical things where we do agree upon. Ultimately, we then have to put all this talk into some sort of meaningful action, in a simple and practical way (even if its in the few limited areas where we can agree).

Issues such as poverty, justice, health or IR can be good bridges, where we can develop new interactions, alliances, tactics and better ways to relate to each other. The important thing, is to do something about these things and if at first we don't succeed to keep at it!

Please do keep on contributing! What we do all need, is to listen more and to "get" the feedback, not just to hear it, but to truly try to listen, so we can all "get it". We need feedback like yours.

That way we know where we are coming from, where we are falling short and turning people off. Hopefully, others will then also learn where we come from, what we mean, or why we "carry on" about such issues. I guess is just a bit of the (sometimes taxing) investment we all need to make.

Remember, even some typical, common language can be misunderstood or misused, just because we have some different perspectives, backgrounds or working definitions. Even if we are talking about the same thing, but viewing it from different sides, or instead hearing its echoes, rather then seeing its causes.

A good way forward, might be to try to achieve some kind of broad agreement on a couple of specific things to do, say, on each major area we are discussing about. The first place to start might be on more practical ways to engage and increase that dialogue, improving the interchange of ideas. The big next one might be some practical hands on ideas about democratic limits on the new Senate or our own involvement on the upcoming 3 by-elections in NSW.

Wadayareackon?!

Carlos M

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Question...

Think...

Learn...

ACT!

The elements that contributed to John Brogden's demise should be noted by Beazley's Labor. Brogden gave tacit support to small-l liberal ideas, like supervised injecting rooms, and that was his downfall. Injecting rooms and 'gay marriage' are two policies that no centrist politician should touch, because well-meaning intentions are murdered by perceptions.  Fertility control (including abortion) is another area where a few rambos like to drag their flaccid members through the dust, but there are enough sensible women on all sides to keep that one under control.

The problem with provision of injecting rooms isn't so much with the morality, but the practicalities. Governments must strive to be accountable. Knowing what to count, as the means to prove injecting rooms "work", is extremely problematic. The services can be provided on a private, or semi-private, charitable basis, but it's not a place where politicians can hope to score votes.

Brogden, therefore, was a liability, and the opportunity for the hard right to knife him was too good to pass up. The word, of the imminent assassination-by-media, would have been put around in the right places, to the great cheer of some. That two feral Liberal females came out of their dens over the weekend should not be a surprise. The scent of blood was in the air.

We could hope that Kim will reflect on John's fate. I don't expect Kim to go anywhere near injecting rooms, or gay marriage, but I can see him equivocating over abortion. Maybe just for a few seconds, enough to flag sympathy for the Cardinal's position, instead of closing it down the instant the question is put to him. If he waffles on abortion, he won't last.

Recommended reading on general governance -
1) The Spring issue of Dissent ($7.70 at the newsagent), for the article by Bob Walker, 5 things that auditors-general should be doing about PPPs. On the sale of the State Bank of NSW, Walker writes

The exercise deserves to be regarded as one of Australia's worst financial scandals.

2) Martin Krygier, in The Age, Are our protectors really protecting us?

The rule of law is not a simple matter to ensure. It needs money, it needs organisation, it needs force and it needs restraint on force. Where governments are too weak, we will suffer at the hands of others; where too strong, at its hands. Civil society depends on a government whose power is strong and limited at the same time. And strong in the right way because it acts within limits.

Pegasus, it may well be argued that if sentiments aren't restated then awareness of the line of thought, especially  when considering concepts that aren't well portrayed in mainstream media, can fade suprisingly rapidly.

Speaking only for myself,  I have used my blogging here to attempt to lay down chains of events as they occur.   As a late-bloomer in learning of ideas that others have been possibly aware of for years, I try to portray activities in a way that can make sense to "lay people" like myself.  Some of us perhaps ignorantly, aren't reading the "similar sentiments posted elsewhere" and may not be aware.

Numbers of commentators don't matter.  Have you sat up at night, when the other side of the world is awake, and watched people log on and off this site by the hundreds?  While the audience isn't as huge as other sites, it is still substantial..

 Finally, regarding percieved repitition of the Iraq theme, of which I may have been too immersed to noticed,  I believe that the events that have led to the Iraq war have been the catalyst to the usurping of the democratic process  in order to foster corporate gain.  I'm not going to go further here and now, but sufice to say that the reason I dig for evidence of corporate fallibility in defence and aid areas is that I hope that increased awareness may help provide a sense of accountability to those who would hijack our way of life to line their own pockets.

Your Democracy, in a fashion, serves as a "cultural snapshot " of those in society who don't believe everything they read in the papers.  As such it could be applauded and assisted, not denegrated and deserted.
 

 

I could not agree more with you...

Yet we do care strongly about all aspects democracy and we need you to tell us where we are going wrong and we need you to raise the issues you wish to be raised. “One cannot but agree