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| Pic courtesy Public Delivery |
Maybe it would help to push the sensational reporting, the endless conjecture, and the triumphalism and despair aside for a bit, and look at a few (very) simple facts.
Turnout is always a good statistic to check. It looks like coming in at about 65%, which is a few percentage points lower than in 2020. I could attempt to analyse the reason for the small decline, but that would be conjecture, best avoided. The fact remains, however, that despite claims to the contrary, this election was unremarkable in terms of voter engagement.
Let's look at the popular vote. Best projection (they're still counting here and there) is Trump 50.5%, Harris 48.0%.
Applying some basic (if unconventional) analysis to that, could be informative.
If you add votes for Harris to the quantum of non-voters, you get 48% + 35% (100% - 65%) = 83%. Put simply, 83% of eligible voters did not support the winner, or if all the 35% did, they didn't believe that the situation was serious enough to warrant a trip to a booth, a dropbox, or the hassle of completing a mail-in ballot.
It makes media references to a "landslide" or "unprecedented realignment" look pretty silly.
So after taking that metaphorical cold shower, the pundits should probably look at their forecasts of an historical shift in trans-Pacific politics, for two reasons. One is that Trump is notorious for over promising. You need only to look at his first term to understand that simple reality. There is no new unbroken border wall, for example, and what there is, was paid for by American, rather than Mexican taxpayers.
Promises about vaccines (Operation Warp Speed) were not kept, and Obamacare was not repealed. His promise to end gun-free zones was also not kept, and is an example of an issue unaffected by the pandemic, which has been used as an excuse for some of his broken commitments.
So the rhetoric he used to get into power is not a clear indicator of what he will do with that power. It reminds me a little of the cliche about a dog chasing cars and what it would do if it actually caught one. Trump's failed business ventures are text book examples of unfulfilled promises.
Finally, I learned a useful lesson about Americans when I served beside them in Vietnam fifty plus years ago. Whilst I shouldn't generalise, and there are some very smart Americans, the quip we often made after encounters with Yanks in country was "You can tell them anything; sell them anything".
That seems to me to remain largely true.
At no time in our national history had Australians been conscripted to fight on foreign soil in peacetime. By 1972, 15381 Nashos were sent to Vietnam, where 200 were killed, 1200 wounded, and thousands traumatised.
A further 40000 (30000 have survived) who weren't deployed to Vietnam had their futures negatively and irrevocably altered by two years in the military at a critical time in their lives, and initially received no rehabilitation benefits.
For a time, the Australian people supported the policy and returned to power a Coalition government which skilfully used anti-communist hysteria based on the Domino theory.
The voters woke up, far to late for many, in 1972, after this most political of conflicts, which had nothing to do with national security.It's time for a bipartisan Crown apology to surviving Nashos, based on the division created by this policy, and the damage done to a generation. Those surviving voters who supported the decision at the time owe us an apology, as do those who blamed us for the war and turned on us on our return.
As Paul Ham wrote in "Vietnam, the Australian War" - "A unique aspect of the Vietnam war is the collective cruelty of a nation that ordered, with the threat of a two-year jail term, a 20 year old to go to war, and then damned him for going."
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| Image courtesy AAP - Russell Freeman |
In the recent Queensland election, both major parties used fear as a potent strategy and spent a great deal of money on spreading it.
Reasoned debate and presentation of facts were abysmally absent from the campaign. It worked for the LNP, and less so for Labor, although the emergence of abortion as an issue late in the campaign may helped them avoid a 2012 style wipeout.
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| Pic courtesy ABC |
A couple of tragic high profile incidents have been cynically exploited as clickbait through online media, and social media has amplified the phenomenon.
The abortion issue also fed into a scare campaign, but there is uncertainty about how the current legislation will be treated if, as Robbie Katter promises, he is successful in getting a vote to amend the current law to the floor of parliament.
As usual, what happens across the Pacific always has ramifications in Australia, and the rise of abortion as an issue here after the reversal of Roe Vs Wade in the US is further evidence of the tendency for American issues to seep to the West.
I long for the day when we have members of our state parliament driven by the issues in their constituencies rather than the party line as promoted by public relations "experts".
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| Pic courtesy Fairfax media. |
Two politicians, both members of the Coalition parties, have bought time on my Facebook platform, and as a consequence I get posts from them daily on my feed.
Reading and analysing these posts is a fascinating exercise. Fact checking them is a pastime.
To provide an example, the member for my federal electorate of Groom has been posting statements such as "Crime rates have soared under Labor" and " the Liberal Party has a very proud record of driving Australia's economic and social progress"
The first statement about the crime rate is simply wrong, or to use the current jargon, an example of misinformation, as this report from Policing Insight of a graph of crime youth statistics from the ABS website illustrates.
The trend is down, not up, and it doesn't take much of an intellect to note this.
Either Hamilton is telling porkies, or he can't read a graph. This is just one example. He's addicted to misinformation, usually expressed as three or four word slogans. He also believes that his audience is too thick to know that crime is a state issue and that he has no jurisdiction. He obviously has a low opinion of his constituents.
The second example is not so cut and dried, but is best characterised as an opinion based on historical mythology. Historical mythology can hang around like barnacles, as I discovered recently when researching a thesis on national service.
In connection with this opinion about the Menzies legacy, I beg to differ. As a national serviceman conscripted to fight in a civil war on foreign soil in peacetime I would not call selective conscription for political advantage (which is what it was) part of a "very proud record".
It's amazing how some features of Coalition policy under Menzies and his successors are airbrushed out of history.
It does illustrate why Hamilton and his colleagues in the Coalition are opposing the proposed misinformation legislation. Misinformation is their bread and butter.
They're not the only ones who post lies on social media, of course, but my taxes pay his salary, and I'd appreciate him not telling lies on the taxpayers payroll. All politicians do it, and unfortunately social media has become a sewer. Leunig's cartoon above is apposite.
That is starkly obvious when you examine his statement about crime, but not so when you look at Coalition history. The first example is a simple denial of fact and an example of using a lie to advance a political position.
The second example is an expression of opinion. The proposed legislation is no threat to the holding and expression of an honest opinion. It is, however a threat to the deliberate posting of lies on social media.
Back then, I had returned to teaching after two years in the army, and ten months (298 days to be precise) on active duty in South Vietnam.
It was great to have returned to a productive enterprise (teaching kids with disabilities) in complete contrast to my experience during 1969/70. Most people I encountered after my RTA* were in a state of disregard about our commitment to a civil war in peacetime on foreign soil and wanted no part of any discussion about it.
That suited me, as I wanted to put the sojourn behind me, and get on with life.
That disregard had changed somewhat by 1987, with the Welcome Home march, and John Schumann's popular song, but for most Australians it was a non-issue. There was a lost fifteen years when Vietnam and national service had been consigned to the forgettery. Neither of these events (the march and the song) were initiated by politicians, although Bob Hawke did take the salute at the march. The march was organised by the veterans, although the then Labor government got behind it with some financial support through transport and organisation.
If you follow the activity post withdrawal of politicians of all brands, they have studiously avoided the issue. John Howard made a speech on the 40th Anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan, but the apology was about how we were treated on return, rather than for sending us in the first place. He also made no distinction between volunteers (regular army) and Conscripts (Nashos).
There has never been an apology to conscripts for sending us to Vietnam. Our situation was markedly different from that of the regular soldiers, who were all volunteers. It's likely that no politician wants to remind voters that there has been only once in our military history when selective conscription was used to send young men to kill and die in peacetime, and the party that did so would rather that it be forgotten.
But there are cranky old curmudgeons like me, who remember, and when my local Coalition federal member contact me unsolicited on Facebook, I decided to remind him of the war, his party's support of it, and their lack of action since.
This is my contribution to his feed.
I'll let you know the outcome, but won't be holding my breath.
*Return to Australia.
This has been brought home to me recently, gentle reader, by a number of encounters which appear at first glance, absolutely random, but when considered carefully are an inevitable result of longevity and mobility.
Yesterday my bride and I went to check out a garden just out of town owned by a mate I first met in 1971 when teaching at the State School for Spastic Children at New Farm, Brisbane. At the time he and I were the only males on staff, and I was fresh from a year in Vietnam.
I explained that as a special school principal I had opened two schools in Townsville. Turns out that one of them was a very good friend of the ex-principal of one of the two schools which had amalgamated, and he and I had collaborated a great deal at the time.
Sadly, he had died last year, but she was able to show me a photo taken a few years ago in which he looked very happy. He didn't seemed to have changed much.
His son favours Peugeots, and I gifted him my old 404 about ten years ago. It's undergoing a slow restoration, and I'm on a promise to drive it when it's finished, if I last that long. It is indeed a very slow restoration. The son is a busy policeman.
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| The car I gave away. |
When you think about it, these connections weren't all that unusual. Special education was a small but rapidly growing segment of the education community in Queensland back then. The progress and expansion since has been incredible.
The nomenclature has changed for the better. Calling a school "The State School for Spastic Children" would not be possible these days.
The term "spastic" describes just one of the manifestations of cerebral palsy. The fact that it has gone from the language except when used by nitwits as a form of abuse is no bad thing.
Apart from being priceless viewing, gentle reader, this grab illustrates pretty clearly the consequences of a ham fisted attempt to rewrite ...
