explodedlibrary.info

Australia-US election year convergence

The nature of the Australian-American alliance is becoming a domestic political issue in Australia, and one of the main differences between the two major parties. The actual differences are really quite minor, but in today’s political environment the differences have been magnified and become the things which elections can be fought over.

The Australian Labor Party (ALP) under the leadership of Mark Latham, who seems to have revitalized the ALP, is committed to the alliance, but wants it to be more of an alliance of equals, rather than the obsequious sycophantic relationship which John Howard has with George W. Bush. Before he was elected leader of the Opposition, Latham called John Howard an arselicker with respect to Howard’s behaviour towards the US. He called the governing Liberal / National coalition a “conga line of suckholes.” The citation to the offical Hansard record of this debate is: H.R. Deb. (5.2.2004) 10927; it's also on page 37 of the 180 page pdf version of the Hansard transcript.
[I been wanting to quote these choices phrases for a long time. I wonder if this will cause my blog to be blocked out by filtering software? That would be a novelty]

The main debate about the nature of the alliance with the US is focused around two main issues. First the presence of Australian troops in Iraq. Second (and less prominently, although having far-reaching ramifications), the proposed US-Australian free trade agreement (FTA). They are interlinked. The progress in the FTA is widely viewed as Australia’s reward for being such a staunch (I say sycophantic) ally to the US, being in lock-step with George W. Bush over Iraq.

As an Australian who lived in the US for over six years and has fond thoughts about the people and place, I certainly think that it makes sense for Australia and the US to be friends and allies. There is certainly a natural affinity amongst the peoples of both countries.

But if the two countries were true friends rather than being master and servant, our alliance would be strong and mature enough that we could disagree about things like Iraq. When the US chickenhawks became obsessed with Iraq, a true friend would have told them in no uncertain terms that it was a mad crusade which would only increase the risk of terrorism from the Middle East.

It’s also interesting that both Australia and the US are facing national elections this year. If Bush should win in the US (God forbid) and Latham in Australia, the Australia-US alliance will be strained somewhat. Not too much. Mark Latham has already toned down his rhetoric since becoming leader of the Opposition. He is first and foremost a politician and is not so stupid as to allow John Howard to mobilize Australia’s paranoia by being too controversial in the final stretch. But he will take out Australia’s largely symbolic contribution of troops in Iraq by the end of the year. Because of that pledge and because he has repeatedly criticized George W. Bush ("Bush himself is the most incompetent and dangerous president in living memory”, H.R. Deb. (5.2.2004) 10926; page 36 of the pdf version) Mark Latham will never be popular with the Bushies.

Of course, I am hoping against hope that both Latham and Kerry will unseat their respective conservative incumbents.

Should John Kerry win, but Howard gets back in Australia, I doubt there will be any problems with the alliance. Kerry is a centrist, not a left-winger – and certainly not by Australian standards. Besides, if there’s regime change in Washington D.C., John Howard will do his utmost to ingratiate himself with the new American President. That is one thing which he does very well.

hoping that the Australia-US free trade agreement founders in the Australian Senate

I was planning on writing about this, but misseli beat me to it with the following fine summary (below in the Arial font).
The only reason why I'm not totally dismayed by this is not a done deal. It still needs to be ratified by the Australian Senate, which the Federal Government does not control. I'm sure that the Greens and Democrats will oppose most of this and the main opposition party, the Australian Labor Party has indicated it may oppose this as well. It's interesting how the electronic news media has portrayed the deal as being good for Australia, with the exception of the sugar industry. "It could have been a lot worse" is the main sentiment. True, at least the US is not yet forcing us to pay more for medicines, but if people knew more they'd realize that this is a lot worse than it appears.

Australia Joins the Mickey Mouse Club

Australia and the United States signed a Free Trade Agreement agreement on February 9 (Feb. 8, in this hemisphere). A lot of the press (here and abroad) is focused on opposition within Australia's agricultural sector (particularly sugar and dairy farmers) and the proposed benefits to its manufacturing sector.

However, warning bells have sounded regarding changes in copyright/IP laws and their effects on libraries. Like the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, Australia's copyright terms have been raised an additional 20 years. It's set to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2005.

From The Age's article:

"The outcome is bad for libraries," said Colette Ormonde, copyright adviser for the Australian Library and Information Association. "It is bad for students. It is bad for researchers. It is bad for all information users."

The terms of the agreement seek to harmonize IP protections in regards to material, including digital formats ... which suggests that DMCA-type legislation is next on the agenda, if not already so.

Thanks for the 411 from /. and the chattylibrarians list-serv. [Confessions of a Mad Librarian]

where do library issues end and personal values begin?

Richard Poynder, "Fiddling while Rome burns?", InformationToday (Jan. 2004).

I drafted most of these comments in January, after reading this article in the printed version of InformationToday. I didn’t post it then mainly because there was no link to the full-text of the article. I thought that maybe in a month, InformationToday would publish the full-text. But they haven’t, even though they’ve put other articles from that issue on the web. I decided to finish this response to it anyway. Most librarians will access to a print copy of InformationToday or can easily get it via Interlibrary Loan.

First, a minor quibble about how this piece was presented. I think that this is more of an opinion piece than an investigative report. Yes, Mr Poynder has research behind his opinions, but the thrust of the article is very opinionated. The premise is that librarians have lost the plot and need to mend their ways. According to Richard Poynder, we need to cease fighting windmills like the USAPATRIOT Act and CIPA, and save our strength for true fight.

Mr Poynder does make some valid points. I agree with one of his major arguments that in practical terms, media consolidation and expanding and oppressive copyright laws are a greater threat to what libraries are about. I also agree that the way that the ALA has handled Cuba has been a complete debacle.

I disagree with the way that Mr Poynder belittles the role of librarians as protectors of intellectual freedom. I disagree with the logic which says that because a few librarians have been hypocritical about this issue, that we have all failed and must give it up.

I wonder if Mr Poynder would have written anything different had he wrote his article after the "almanac scare". He uses John Ashcroft's and the FBI's words that the FBI has no interest in tracking the reading habits of ordinary Americans. Then we learn that something as innocent and neutral as an almanac is viewed with suspicion by law enforcement.

My strongest criticism of his article is when he mentions that the word "library" does not appear once in the USAPATRIOT Act. This comes right out of the FBI's talking points. It doesn't matter if libraries, or booksellers or whatever is actually specified in the language of the Act. The wording is broad enough that it will apply to libraries and a lot of other organizations. Maybe the drafters of the legislation preferred the broad language so libraries could be the concealed target, allowing apologists like Poynder to play down its effect on libraries. Maybe the drafters wanted to be able to use the USAPATRIOT Act against anyone with any personal information that might be useful. Neither explanation is reassuring.

Mr Poynder says that librarians have been politicized to the extent that they are unable to differentiate between library issues and civil rights issues. I agree that not every library issue is a civil rights issue, and not every civil rights issue is a library issue. As a reference law librarian, I often had to help people who were fighting "on the wrong side" of a civil rights issue. I appreciate that sometimes professional ethics as a librarian will diverge from my own personal values. But Mr Poynder seems to be suggesting that there should be a dichotomy between the two.

I certainly don’t agree with the way that this article seems to deride librarians for conveniently and hypocritically latching onto the cause of intellectual freedom. This an insult to those of us who do view librarianship as more than just a comparatively low-paid job with low-prestige, but almost as a calling.

I view the current threats to libraries and open access to information as two-fold in nature. The threat of media consolidation and expanded copyright is like a physical threat. If we lose this fight, it will become more and more difficult to do our jobs and our patrons will eventually go elsewhere - if they can afford to. The USAPATRIOT Act is a different kind of threat. If we lose the fight for intellectual freedom, libraries will continue to function but they will have been corrupted. I say that we can't afford to lose either struggle.

my thoughts about "America, love it or leave it"

Why is that that the American Right so often responds to criticism by saying something like, “if you don't like Bush or his policies, well then you're free to leave the country.”

As someone who did have a real choice about whether to live in the US or not, and ended up using that exit option, I have a few idealistic words to say about this.

It’s such a disingenuous thing to say- of course any American is free to leave the USA, but would they be let in anywhere else? Under international law, unless there are special circumstances, you only have the right to live in your country of nationality. You can’t demand to live in Canada, the UK or any other country for the rest of your days. You may apply and if you’re qualified or lucky they may choose to let you in, but you have no legal right. Although liberal American emigrants might sometimes feel oppressed by the political climate, this would not be enough to qualify for refugee status in other countries. Not unless things get a lot worse, and Ann Coulter's idea that Democrats are all traitors takes hold.

Even if there weren't these legal impediments for emigration, it is wrong to ask somebody to give up their home and go into exile just because they have a different political opinion. That reminds me of the gulag in Siberia.

It is no trivial thing to live in a different country - even when it concerns moving between Australia and the US, two countries with very close cultural and linguistic ties, at least when compared with other countries. Emigration still involves missing family and childhood friends and of course the land. It is wrong for people on the right to so flippantly and frequently call for such a sacrifice by their political opponents.

The real point is that American liberals has as much right to the USA as American conservatives. It is ludicrous to say that Conservative or Neoconservative values are the true American values and that everyone else are just interlopers, who live in the US only at the sufferance of the true Americans.

The answer is to challenge the implicit assumptions being made when a Conservative parrots something dumb like "America, love it or leave it." Do they really think that most important thing about the US are guns, military aggression, religious fanaticism, unbridled capitalism and wasteful SUVs? If that's what they care about, and not the democratic values expressed in the Constitution, how American can they really be?

Melbourne Age article on Australian expats

How interesting, on the day that I flew back to Australia, the Melbourne Age published an article about Australians living overseas. There was also some mention of ex pats who return - why they do and the challenges they face. I expect that I'll have a lot more to say about this issue, that it will be a recurring theme. I am fully aware that my decision to return to Australia was not an economically rational decision or a particularly career-smart move. I for one agree with the reason mentioned in that article - this is about returning to my roots, my family and the actual country. For me it was also about leaving the US. To put it bluntly, the political situation there and the power of the Right was freaking me out.

ranting against French secular fundamentalism

I realize that I have a love/hate relationship with the French. In the mid-1990s, I hated them, like most other Australians, when they resumed their nuclear testing in the South Pacific. Their arrogance was so shameless and infuriating! It took me a few years to forgive them for that. Then last year, I decided to subscribe to the English language version of Le Monde diplomatique on the web. I greatly enjoyed reading that alternative perspective on world events. (This is hardly relevant, but I'll never forget watching Amelie in the cinema and being in a crowd that spontaneously clapped at the end of the film.) The high point of good feelings towards the French occured during those evil months just before the Iraq war, I was so proud of the way that at France and Germany resisted the US and the UK in the UN security council. The more that the Neocons hated the French, the more I loved them. When they childishly campaigned to have French Fries renamed as Freedom Fries, I developed a preference for Evian water and French wine.

But now things are changing again. I am absolutely appalled by the French Government's plans to ban the wearing of head scarves by Muslim schoolgirls. Do they think that this help French Muslims to be better integrated in French society? It will do the opposite, and will drive Muslims out of public schools into private schools.

I worry that the following is going to be a little controversial, but I'm a blogger, not a politician or journalist, so I'm just going to write what I'm thinking. ...

I've finally deciphered the code! Now I understand Bushspeak

For a such long time I did not see rhyme or reason in any of the words coming out of the Bush Administration. But now I've learned to find the truth in them. It's so simple - just turn the words on their head!

Clear Skies = Dirtier Skies
Mission Accomplished = Mission not yet accomplished
No Child Left Behind = All Children Left Behind (as we create more unfunded mandates)
Prescription Drug Benefit for Seniors = Prescription Drug Benefit for Health Insurance Companies
I've done more for human rights than every other President = I've done less for human rights than any other President

I'm sure that there are plenty of other examples.

It was thinking about this which gave me the initial insight:
Bush said that the UN must allow the US to invade Iraq or the UN will fade into history as an ineffective, irrelevant debating society. In fact, only by rubber-stamping the US' every demand would the UN fade into history as an ineffective, irrelevant debating society.

This Modern World on dangerous reference books

I don't have anything new to say on the topic of almanacs, but I wanted to link to This Modern World's take on this absurdity.

It makes me wonder - by dignifying the suspicion about almanacs etc. with a response, am I playing into the hands of those who cast these aspersions? It's hard to know, but I think that one of the few defences against the Bush Administration's Big Lie tactic is for many people to challenge the falsehood early, loudly and unambiguously.

more about the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004

Wired News has another article about the stealth passage of elements of the Patriot Act II.

$15 for the Fifteen

Jason Lefkowitz has also been following the story about how the Bush administration outmaneuvered opponents of the Patriot Act II by incorporating some of its elements into Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal 2004 and so avoid public debate about its controversial changes. Jason hasn't just got angry about it - he's set up a fund to reward the 15 House Republicans who crossed the floor and voted against this legislation. He is using PayDemocracy host the $15 for Fifteen campaign.

With Republicans in control of the Presidency, Congress and Supreme Court (most of the time), it is important to realize that they are not a monolithic group and that not all Republican members of Congress are like Tom DeLay.