The Zeitgeist

The National covers the latest round of staggered voting in Kashmir and asks an interesting question. How do we reconcile the voter turnout in Kashmir against the peoples' repeated calls for azaadi (independence)? The National asks people at the polls with varying results but one man, Mr Bhat, a Patelbagh paddy farmer, hits the nail on the head:

“The mainstream politicians cheat people and among the separatists there are no good leaders,” he said. “[Politicians’] children are studying in another country, in the US, but look at ours — they have no education, no future. What kind of leadership is that?”

George Bush has also embarked on a farewell tour of Iraq, and has two shoes thrown at him by a man at a press conference.
The journalist sitting in the third row jumped up, shouting: “It is the farewell kiss, you dog,” and threw his shoes one after the other towards Mr Bush. Mr al Maliki made a protective gesture towards the US president, who was not hit.

The farewell kiss indeed, Bush is touring the country after the surge of around 30,000 troops last year seems to have provided a marked improvement in the security situation. Only time will tell, however, whether a conflict that has claimed the lives of over 4,000 US soldiers and tens or hundreds of thousands of Iraqis (depending on who's estimates you believe) will find a lasting peace any time soon.

Labels: india, iraq, kashmir, world happenings

posted by LX @ 12:48 AM Comments: 0

The Subprime Mortgage Crisis - The Blame Game

It has come to my attention that this talking point has, of late, started to descend (or ascend?) into blame game shifting tactics.

Having read some stuff, here are my thoughts.

The Subprime mortgage crisis cannot be blamed on poor or minority homewoners. It cannot be blamed on Jimmy Carter's Community Reinvestment Act of 1977. Poor or minority homeowners actually have far better default rates than rich white people. It cannot be entirely blamed on Fannie and Freddie. The CRA act, Fannie & Freddie, none of these things were directly responsible for things like "No Money Down Mortgages" or banks not verifying income or payment history of mortgage applicants. That is ridiculous. Read this and this.

Some theorists think that the bailout was always implicit, that Fannie & Freddie were always working under an implicit Government guarantee and that this is part of the problem. Maybe. But Fannie & Freddie certainly cannot be blamed for the whole fiasco.

Wondering where the blame should lie? Apart from all our collective stupid heads and the heads in the financial institutions how about this?

"Three officials, more than any others, have been responsible for preventing effective regulatory action over a period of years: Alan Greenspan, the oracular former Fed chairman; Phil Gramm, the heartless former chairman of the Senate banking committee; and Christopher Cox, the unapologetic chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Blame Greenspan for making the case that the exploding trade in derivatives was a benign way of hedging against risk. Blame Gramm for making sure derivatives weren't covered by the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, a bill he shepherded through Congress in 2000. Blame Cox for championing Bush's policy of "voluntary" regulation of investment banks at the SEC." [Slade]


Slade in fact does bring up an interesting point. Libertarians and economic rationalists are the ones that are running around playing the blame game with anything and anyone apart from the obvious. Deregulation and lack of oversight. No matter how much we pretend that markets are perfect without government intervention and that Adam Smith's invisible hand is strong enough to carry us all... it just ain't true people.

"The worst thing you can say about libertarians is that they are intellectually immature, frozen in the worldview many of them absorbed from reading Ayn Rand novels in high school. Like other ideologues, libertarians react to the world's failing to conform to their model by asking where the world went wrong. Their heroic view of capitalism makes it difficult for them to accept that markets can be irrational, misunderstand risk, and misallocate resources or that financial systems without vigorous government oversight and the capacity for pragmatic intervention constitute a recipe for disaster. They are bankrupt, and this time, there will be no bailout."[Slade]

Labels: sub-prime mortgage crisis and aftermath, world happenings

posted by LX @ 9:51 PM Comments: 2

OK I have a lot of crap to get off my chest today.

Firstly, the disgraceful slandering of Dubai for the prosecution and possible imprisonment of Michelle Palmer and Vince Acors on Jumeirah Beach. For those that have heard already, these two were sort of having sex on the beach... ahh what fun. Then they sort of realised that the UAE had strict laws about that sort of thing and sort of found themselves arrested and charged. The whole world has kicked up a fuss, including several major newspapers and the blogosphere, about how: "oh its so unfair... oh oh *hand wringing* this is a clash of cultures... Dubai shouldn't tempt people to its shores with fun and then put them in jail for having it... oh oh" which is just bloody stupid as this Editorial from The National points out:
"They broke the law: it’s as simple as that. The behaviour of Michelle Palmer and Vince Acors on Jumeirah beach in Dubai would also have been against the law in London, Paris and New York. Not only that, it would have been against the law in the fleshpots of Las Vegas, Amsterdam and Bangkok. That is why they were arrested, that is why they were prosecuted, that is why they were found guilty and that is why, if their appeal fails, they will go to prison."

Bloody right, first rule of international travel states, know the law of the country you're in, respect it, and don't break it. We all know that British expats are not going to leave Dubai because they want a piece of that money pie as much as anyone else does but, for every British idiot who leaves... there will be more than enough expats from all over the world ready to pounce on his job (me included).

Read here another absolutely brilliant piece from Tony Karon, in the National, on the geopolitical after-effects of the global financial crisis. He rightly points out that most people blame poor stewardship on the part of the US for the crisis, that right now the US is nto taking any innovative steps in leading the world out of it and that this will strongly change the global financial, and geopolitical, landscape. Karon explores the aftermath of the bailout and its likely effects on several other pressing issues.

In US Elections related news... I very much am hoping that I can soon say that it's all over red rover for Mr. McCain. Not only has Obama just shredded all sorts of records with his $150m September donation figures (remember he rejected public funding!) and gathered a rally of over 100,000 people in Missouri but he has just landed the endorsement of Colin Powell! Colin Powell is not only a Republican and one of the earliest proponents of the war on Iraq, but he also happens to be one of the most popular politicians in the US (not to mention an accomplished rapper)... surely this is End Game.



Fashion/Design-wise, I came across this awesome looking stool. Yes it's actually a soft scuplted Hercules' head that this chap is sitting on. I want one! You want one too? Buy it here.



Also get a sneak peak at the new Converse Spring collection. I'm not a huge fan of what I've seen so far but new Converse is always an exciting thing. I find the platinum chucks on the left rather interesting but I don't think they're anything that I would wear.





And finally, Mr. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar has overtaken Brian Lara as the highest run-scorer in the history of test cricket. 12,000+ runs and counting. I, like many Aussies, am not impressed by the thorough shelacking that has been dished out to our team in the second test so far, and am growing rather worrisome about this series... but hats have to go off to the little master. It has been an amazing innings, still not out and still yet to see when and how he will hang up the pads - no doubt it will be a grand event.

Labels: cricket, design, dubai, fashion, US Elections 2008, world happenings

posted by LX @ 3:32 PM Comments: 0

Some more cool stuff from the internets today. If anyone else is into stencil art, here is an absolutely amazing set from C215, a Pais-based stencil artist, set in Karol Bagh, India. He may be the first stencil artist to have stencilled the streets of India... but either way his work is absolutely awesome.













According to Anchorage Daily News,

"A legislative investigation has concluded that Gov. Sarah Palin abused her power in pushing for the firing of an Alaska state trooper who was once married to her sister, or by failing to prevent her husband Todd from doing so."

For those that are not so clued in on this story called Troopergate
"Branchflower was investigating Palin's involvement in an effort to get state trooper Mike Wooten fired. Wooten was involved in a nasty divorce from Palin's sister. Palin and her husband, Todd, have accused Wooten of threatening Palin's father."


A recent symposium called al-Qaeda 3.0 has established some worrying facts about the situation with al-Qaeda these days. The general consensus around the Washington establishment is that the Surge and the recent "successes" in the war on Iraq have weakened al-Qaeda but it seems that this is hardly the case.

Check this from the Wonk Room's Matt Duss:
"Because of the redirection of focus and resources to Iraq, Al Qaeda’s top leadership was allowed to escape to Pakistan, from where they continue to support insurgency in Afghanistan, and continue to plan attacks on the West. Also reiterated at today’s event was the extent to which the invasion and occupation of an Arab Muslim country has served to confirm bin Laden’s propaganda, which appeals to a sense of grievance among many young Muslims.

Another consequence of the Iraq war — one which has yet to be widely reported but which I think is going to become extremely important in the next few years as its effects become more apparent– is the phenomenon of fighters leaving Iraq, bringing their ideology and experience and establishing new fronts in other countries."

Considering that the Washington Establishment is so misguided about the impact of this War, or, at the very least, is so eloquently and elaborately continuing to try to pull the wool over the eyes of the American people (and the People of the World), what will it take to end this? Many of the people that started this war and continue to be proponents of it now serve as advisors on the McCain campaign. When will people wake up?

Labels: art, india, street art, US Elections 2008, world happenings

posted by LX @ 5:19 PM Comments: 2

first from Milan Fashion Week...

Labels: fashion, US Elections 2008, world happenings

posted by LX @ 2:40 AM Comments: 2

The US presidential campaign appears to be heating up, McCain who has previously stumbled on the economy and conceded a lead in the polls to Obama over the issue (this might have something to do with the fact that he claimed that the US has a fundamentally strong economy a few days before the collapse) is back in the picture. His recent announcement that he is halting his campaign (including his debate appearance) in order to focus on solving the crisis may have been a master-stroke. As it stands, McCain is not backing down, not attending the debate, and the question on everyone's lips is will Obama be debating with himself in Mississippi?

[update]: There are still questions as to whether John McCain will participate in the first presidential debate, but Barack Obama's top advisers are heading to the event site. Jeff Zeleney, The Caucus, NYT.

Palin, on the other hand, continues to make me laugh. According to The New York Times' Sarah Wheaton, Palin has actually thrown more fuel on the hysterical fire brewing over her "I can see Russia from my house" remarks. She apparently complained to Katie Couric of CBS that she has been mocked for these comments and has proceeded to clarify them:
"It’s very important when you consider even national-security issues with Russia. As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right next to, they are right next to our state."

I mean... seriously?

Speaking of stupid Republicans, our all time fave went on national TV last night and decided to blame the financial crisis on foreign investors... I mean... is the American public that stupid? Well ok don't answer that...

And here's an excellent article from Think Progress' M. Duss, reminding us that the $700b suggested to bailout the US economy is in fact similar to the amount the US has spent in Iraq so far... it also quotes some interesting comments from Bin Laden way back in 2004 about the strategy of "bleeding the USA until bankruptcy". And I quote from Mr. BL

"And even more dangerous and bitter for America is that the Mujahedin recently forced Bush to resort to emergency funds to continue the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq which is evidence of the success of the bleed-until-bankruptcy plan with Allah’s permission… And it all shows that the real loser is… you. It’s the American people and their economy."

Labels: politics, US Elections 2008, world happenings

posted by LX @ 12:47 PM Comments: 0

New York Times:

"Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the last big independent investment banks on Wall Street, will transform themselves into bank holding companies subject to far greater regulation, the Federal Reserve said Sunday night, a move that fundamentally reshapes an era of high finance that defined the modern Gilded Age."

So this means no more US investment banks. The big 5 has turned into the big nothing! This is huge news. This means they will be conventional banks now with investing arms, but it also means greater regulation and disclosure, less risk and less of the high-flying lifestyle for Investment Bankers (boo?). Will this translate over to their branches overseas such as Australia? Will Macquarie and other home-grown investment banks follow suit? At least this will definitely save the market!


Gulf Daily News:

"PLANNERS are already mapping out possible rail routes from Bahrain and other GCC states to Europe, via Turkey, thanks to a proposal by His Majesty King Hamad.

A proposed GCC rail link to Turkey could become a reality "in the next five to six years", Turkish Ambassador Osman Haldun said yesterday.

It would ultimately lead to the Gulf region being connected to Europe by rail, he told the GDN."

This is pretty amazing news. I'm not sure if this will materialise but a rail link from the GCC to Europe would be such an amazing opportunity for financial investment, cross-cultural learning and sharing between the two regions and an important cultural bridge between Arabs, "Islam" and "The West". Immediate questions that spring to mind are... will anyone use it? Gulf Arabs generally prefer to travel in comfort, not on 20 hour train rides, and will Gulf women use it? Will this result in a further influx of European backpackers into the region? Will this even materialise, as many of the plans announced by GCC Governments never did... Wow... so cool to imagine though.

Labels: bahrain, finance, world happenings

posted by LX @ 6:24 PM Comments: 0

Some excellent opinion pieces from The Age today:

Irfan Yusuf criticises the current Western attitude towards Islamic terrorism, in response to the recent Marriott Hotel bombing

"Pakistan's Aaj TV news network showed one flustered Pakistani politician facing fierce questioning about how such a heavily secured location in the heart of the capital could have been the subject of attack. "You are journalists. You seem to know it all. Why don't you tell me how we can stop these attacks?" he said.

Indeed, it is easy to pretend to know all the answers. In the West, too many self-styled terrorism "experts" want us to forget that this latest attack is yet another reminder that most victims of Islamist terror are themselves ordinary Muslims."

For Melburnians, Nicholas Low laments the mess that is Swanston St, its importance to our city and his recommendations for what should be done - some of them are pretty cool!

"IT'S TIME for Swanston Street to be properly planned to make it safe for people on bikes, and create more space for people on foot. This fine street is the central axis that in many ways defines Melbourne as a city. It has heritage buildings, it connects St Paul's Cathedral, the Town Hall, the State Library and two universities.

It houses two main transport hubs, it is a main retail and entertainment street, it leads to the arts precinct, Federation Square and the river, and it looks on to the Shrine of Remembrance. Yet, at present the street is a disgraceful mess. Last week it also proved to be a danger to life."

And Bruce Grant asserts Australia's supremacy over the US on matters of global politics and diplomacy. (Thank you Mr. Rudd)

"IT'S a strange feeling, while watching the elections in the United States, to realise that the US is trailing Australia in important respects. America has been for so long the fountain of all that is "new" that to think of it being behind the times, especially as set on this side of the Pacific, requires a wrench of the imagination.

But Australia is out of Iraq and has signed the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, on both of which the US is still undecided. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. The next president confronts a lengthy list of things to do to catch up with the contemporary world."

Labels: politics, world happenings

posted by LX @ 5:15 PM Comments: 0

Because Islam has held the monopoly on suicide bombers for far too long...

So recently two bombs were planted in Bombay auditoriums Thane and Vashi. One was diffused by police and the other went off and injured 7 people. Well there may have been universal condemnation in Indian media but it was not all quite for the right reasons.

“When we heard that Hindus have been making bombs, we were happy. But we felt ashamed when we read that the blast injured were Hindus,” says the editorial for the Bombay paper Saamna, a mouthpiece for the Hindu Nationalist Shiv Sena party. In fact the piece was titled: titled "The dud bombs of Hindus! Why embarrass us?". Yes those shoddy bomb-makers put upon all Hindus a grave shame, the shame of not being good enough to even put together a decent bomb, let alone have the guts to go and blow their guts all over the place with it like their Muslim brothers.








That's right folks, Hindus need suicide bombing squads to compete these days!

"Islamic terrorism is on the rise in India and in order to counter Islamic terrorism, we should match it with Hindu terrorism," the unsigned editorial said in Marathi. "Just like Islamic extremism, to safeguard the country and Hindus we must create Hindu suicide squads if Hindu society is to be saved."

One has to wonder, this is a Hindu nationalist party... and isn't Hinduism meant to be a peaceful reilgion? I mean there may have been a lot of bloodshed in the past but does this make sense? I mean how far back into samsara do you think one gets thrown? They probably get reincarnated as cockroaches. And what happened to the great Hindu tradition of ahimsa, or peaceful resistance? I think Gandhi has turned in his grave so many times by now that he's burrowed a hole to the centre of the earth.

Let's look at the Goverment's reactions? The Congress Party, aka. staunch defender of secularism says "The Congress strongly condemns the remarks said to have been made by Mr Bal Thackeray with regard to the formation of suicide squads. This is a clear call not only to lawlessness and violence but will be also the death knell for peaceful democracy," its spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan told reporters in New Delhi. I agree, India is a secular democracy, not a Hindu nation.

And the BJP? Aka. the moderate Hindu nationalist party that used to hold Government in India and is still a major contender? Criticising the comments, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday advised its ally to respect the law. “People should not take law into their hands. It is the duty of the government to counter terror,” BJP Vice President Venkaiah Naidu said. Fairly weak response designed to not lose any Shiv Sena supporters. Nice.

So seeing as the monopoly may be broken are we going to see Mormon terrorism now? Jehova's Witness extremism? Scientological suicide attacks? I'd like to see Tom Cruise blow himself up on Oprah's couch, that'd be something. Or maybe he'd do it Last Samurai style and go nuts with a big sword? OK I know I shouldnt be making light of this but seriously this is ridiculous. Has Inda not seen enough bloodshed during partition? What about Bombay? The riots? When will people learn?

HT Times coverage here and here for the Government reaction. The Age coverage here (yes it made the Aussie papers).

Labels: india, politics, religion, world happenings

posted by LX @ 8:50 AM Comments: 3

A Homage to Beirut and Gaza

To the people of Gaza and Beirut. As time refuses to heal and only inflicts new wounds.


How suddenly the private
Is revealed in a bombed-out city,
How the blue and white striped wallpaper

Of a second story bedroom is now
Exposed to the lightly falling snow
As if the room had answered the explosion

Wearing only its striped pajamas.
Some neighbors and soldiers
Poke around in the rubble below

And stare up at the handing staircase,
The portrait of a grandfather,
A door dangling from a single hinge.

And the bathroom looks amost embarrassed
By its uncovered ochre walls,
The twisted mess of its plumbing,

The sink sinking to its knees,
The ripped shower curtain,
The torn goldfish trailing bubbles.

It’s like a dollhouse view
As if a child on its knees could reach in
And pick up the bureau, straighten a picture.

Or it might be a room on a stage
In a play with no characters,
No dialogue or audience,

No beginning, middle and end-
Just the broken furniture in the street,
A shoe among the cinder blocks,

A light snow still falling
On a distant steeple, and people
Crossing a bridge that still stands.

And beyond that- crows in a tree,
The statue of a leader on a horse,
And clouds that look like smoke,

And even farther on, in another country
On a blanket under a shade tree,
A man pouring wine into two glasses

And a woman sliding out
The wooden pegs of a wicker hamper
Filled with bread, cheese, and several kinds of olives.

Labels: literature, world happenings

posted by LX @ 11:03 AM Comments: 1

Written: [Barcelona] 8.45pm 28th March

Starbucks in the Barri Goti with Sinatra painfully but melodiously churning through love songs. After a day of random meandering which started off with a trip to the hospital in search of medical help for my conjunctivitis (my conversational ability in Spanish surprised myself) and a bunch of Gaudis (the double take at La Sagrada Familia was particularly memorable), my mood worsened as we headed back to La Rambla and selected a rather unfortunate restaurant - Gaudi's Tapas or something equally tourist enticing. It felt like a quasi-English pub with bad service and overpriced food. No tip. The warrens of la Ciutat Vella continue to toss up gems but unfortunately, in the very Murphy's Law sense, never the ones we seem to need at the time. So after a half bottle of Rioja, we were too sleepy to search and settled on the comfort of Starbucks. After milky coffee, cake and a cigarette, the sofa seems a good place to sleep, or to at least read Walden.

It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.

Labels: architecture, Barcelona, literature, philosophy, travel, world happenings

posted by LX @ 7:48 AM Comments: 2

Six Days

At the starting of the week
At summit talks you hear them speak
It's only Monday
Negotiations breaking down
See those leaders start to frown
It's sword and gun day

Tomorrow never comes until it's too late

You could be sitting taking lunch
The news will hit you like a punch
It's only Tuesday
You never thought we'd go to war
After all the things we saw
It's April Fools' day

Tomorrow never comes until it's too late
Tomorrow never comes until it's too late

You hear a whistling overhead
Are you alive or are you dead?
It's only Thursday
You feel a shaking on the ground
A billion candles burn around
Is it your birthday?

Tomorrow never comes until it's too late
Tomorrow never comes until it's too late
Make tomorrow come I think it's too late

100 people dead in Gaza, most of them civilians. Bloodied pictures of Palestinian children lying on makeshift hospital beds. More of the same in the papers. The sensational photos, the underwhelming responses from politicans, all more of the same. Israel threatens Gaza with another "Holocaust". Mahmood Abbas withdraws from peace talks, a good move to show some backbone and not accede to Israeli aggression? Or a bad move that will set the peace process back further? Condoleeza Rice says "I understand that it has been a very difficult circumstance, innocent people should not have to die". Understatement of the century. Will anything ever change?

Tomorrow is another day
Today is another bomb

Labels: music, world happenings

posted by LX @ 5:20 AM Comments: 5

Dubai ticking time bomb

Thanks to my man Tom, formerly of Zemalek-Cairo fame, soon to be of Abu Dhabi fame, for providing these links and prompting this blogpost.

A very interesting viewpoint aka. leftist/socialist take on the phenomenon that is Dubai.

While the Dubai piece is certainly far from unbiased, and it does lampoon Sheikh Maktoum's gigantic ambitions fairly cleverly, it does also bring up some very interesting points about Dubai's history, srategy, laws and class society.

Historically, the article talks a great deal about Dubai's very humble beginnings, and how, interestingly, it has used many underworld links to ensure the security that it currently enjoys.

Dubai now enjoys high marks from Washington as a partner in the War on Terror and, in particular, as a base for spying on Iran; [26] but it is probable that al-Maktoum, like the other Emirati rulers, still keeps a channel open to radical Islamists. If al-Qaeda so desired, for example, it could presumably turn the Burj Al-Arab and Dubai’s other soaring landmarks into so many towering infernos. Yet so far Dubai is one of the few cities in the region to have entirely avoided car-bombings and attacks on Western tourists: eloquent testament, one might suppose, to the city-state’s continuing role as a money laundry and upscale hideout, like Tangiers in the 1940s or Macao in the 1960s. Dubai’s burgeoning black economy is its insurance policy against the car-bombers and airplane hijackers.

The article also points out how, rather obviously, how much the Gulf economies are reliant on positive fluctuations in the oil price, and how these fluctuations come about:

Every time insurgents blow up a pipeline in the Niger Delta, a martyr drives his truck bomb into a Riyadh housing complex, or Washington and Tel Aviv rattle their sabres at Tehran, the price of oil (and thus Dubai’s ultimate income) increases by some increment of anxiety in the all-important futures market. The Gulf economies, in other words, are now capitalized not just on oil production, but also on the fear of its disruption.

The article also makes a very interesting point of the current guest worker situation, that is of course applicable to all the other Gulf states (though not quite so much as Dubai with its ridiculously tiny single-digit local population).

The unruly voice of labour echoes louder in the deserts of the uae than it might elsewhere. At the end of the day, Dubai is capitalized just as much on cheap labour as it is on expensive oil, and the Maktoums, like their cousins in the other emirates, are exquisitely aware that they reign over a kingdom built on the backs of a South Asian workforce.


The question on everyone's lips of course, is how sustainable this strategy is exactly. Perhaps because the article was published in October of 2006, it fails to mention the impact that the falling value of the US Dollar is currently having on worker morale in the Gulf. If we look simply at the state of the US economy, and the concurrently nosediving interest rates (down 0.75 percentage points last month, and another 0.5 a week later), the picture for the US currency sure looks bleak indeed. Which also means that the outlook for those of us earning Bahraini Dinar, Saudi Rial, Emirati Dirham, or any of the other Gulf currencies pegged to the USD is similarly not good. Particularly for those that are earning these wages in ridiculously tiny amounts, all on the premise of being able to send some home to South/South-East Asia. Now when these currencies begin to depreciate at a great rate to the Indian Rupee and other South/South-East Asian currencies, the trouble begins. Working conditions have not improved, wages have not appreciated in nominal terms and are depreciating now when stacked up in real terms against the wages they are meant to supplicate in the workers' home countries. Combine this with the already simmering discontent of being treated like slaves with no rights to mobilisation, let alone collective bargaining, and you really have a problem. It does indeed seem that, at least in this respect, the Gulf is a ticking time bomb. Food for thought, and we thought sectarian unrest or a strike against Iran were the problems, this seems to be the least of our worries...

Labels: bahrain, dubai, politics, world happenings

posted by LX @ 8:42 AM Comments: 6

Kevin07 is a reality - The Australian Federal Election

This was only the second election that I have been eligible to vote in, and sadly the first election I have been overseas during the course of. As there was no ballot box in Bahrain and sending a postal vote appeared to be too complicated, my vote was not cast. However, waking up today and viewing the headlines on The Age was exhilirating.

"Rudd Romps to Victory: Howard humiliated as Liberals are mauled"
"Historic win for Labor"
"Howard likely to lose in Bennelong"
"A Rumble, then a Ruddslide"
"Payback time as battlers take their revenge"
"Team Julia delivers a win for history"

Yes indeed, even though voting is not yet complete, it does appear that the Australian Labor Party is going to form government, with a 25 seat majority, with Mr. Kevin Rudd at its helm as Prime Minister.

I have to say bravo to the ALP campaign team for running a very tight and clever campaign, that managed to sidestep all of the Liberals' usual fear-mongering and dirty tricks, and bravo to the voters of Australia for making the right decision. Although I am not proud to say that I live in an electoral area that, due to the economic prosperity of its residents, is remaining a safe Liberal seat, I am still proud to be part of a country where I no longer have to be embarassed of our leader. Now I am just waiting to see what Mr. Rudd is going to do with the confidence I, and many fellow Australians, have in him, let's hope we are not disappointed.

Mr. Rudd campaigned largely on an agenda of reform in key areas of health, education, environment and industrial relations. He intends to rollback the very unpopular Work Choices policies of the previous Government (which contributed to its downfall), push for an immediate ratification of the Kyoto agreement (finally!) and negotiate a withdrawal of our troops from Iraq (finally an end to our part in the occupation). Good signs indeed.

The undoings of Mr. Howard were very clear and simple. The massive majority that was formed in the wake of the 2004 election gave the Government unprecendent power, power that eventually went to its head. The papers called it a "victory of humility over hubris" and I couldn't agree more. One thing that Aussies hate is arrogance and hubris. Work Choices was never popular with the people, no matter how much the Government sold it, and the people were not fooled. Similarly, Howard's close ties to Mr. George W. Bush were not appreciated by the electorate, nor was his ridiculous promise to keep interest rates low, something entirely out of his control. Six interest rate rises later, he can kiss office goodbye.

Not only that, but Mr. Howard is actually going to lose his seat in Bennelong, a seat which he has won in every single election since being elected to it as a Member of Parliament in 1974. He is losing to a political rookie and former news anchor, Maxine McKew. Such is the dissatisfaction around the country with him, his policies and his personality. This only the second time in history that the PM has lost his seat during an election, the last time being in 1929, also over an unpopular right-wing industrial relations agenda.

So now that Mr. Howard has been duly humiliated for having the arrogance to push for such a ridiculous agenda, for having the arrogance not to step down and hand over to Costello when it was clear to everyone, even his own party, that he was getting too old and too arrogant, for having the arrogance to try to hoodwink the Australian people so many times, with his promises on interest rates, with his lies about the Tampa incident, with his lies about WMDs in Iraq and with his generally abrasive, evasive and grating demeanor, he is getting his just desserts. Instead of going out a winner, he is well and truly going out a loser.

And as much as I dislike Costello and believe his economic rationalist policies may even be worse for Australia, I can't help but feel sorry for the man who must have believed at one time that he would easily become Prime Minister. Now Costello has to fight for the leadership of an unpopular party, and battle a worthy opponent in Malcom Turnbull, who was the only Liberal to buck the swinging trend and hold his seat strongly. Good Luck, Pete!

Myself personally, I am just happy that I no longer have to look at Howard on television any more and cringe at how dull, ugly, uninspiring, arrogant and evasive he is. God Bless Australia.

Labels: politics, world happenings

posted by LX @ 3:53 AM Comments: 3