Thank you for a very thorough analysis of the present geo-political situation.Yes, politics and maybe life itself is about power and as some wit said: Power is wonderful and absolute power is absolutely wonderful. Maybe we do need an ecological catastrophe to bring us to our senses. I hope not. The antidote to power is love. Power destroys love in marriage as well as in the wider world.So the problem can be put in another way. Why do we allow our leaders to fool us with promises of a Heaven on earth and of an enemy which we must forever hate in order to reach paradise? I guess it is that the God that we now worship who goes by the Greek name of Mammon and is the most powerful and dangerous God that we have ever followed tells us that there is a solid pot of gold at the end of that beautiful rainbow.
Thanks again- as long as there is life there is hope! Pluto

Peter, I'm feeling more optimistic about your pessimism.

While still lamenting the "fall" of old style democratic politics you now see some hope in the democratic possibilities of information technology.

I think your definition of politics is a little restricted to liberal or social democracy where national autonomy is strong.

Looking at history I think Australia's financial and foreign policies were subservient to Britain's until the 1940's, not to mention reacting to the economic forces of Wall Street for the last 85 years.

I think our politician's have always (and necessarily) reacted to more powerful centres overseas. There has always, however, been some influence from voters and other national interest groups in determining the shape of politics. Poticians therefore respond to a mixture of interests (eg. US interest rates and Australian voters)rather than maintaining a "pure" policy agenda (chock full of intergrity).

So, the fact that "multinationals" and "globalisation" are now well labelled does not necessarily diminish the power of the public when one compares it to other times in Australia's history.

You've written set of articles. I don't agree with your analysis but do agree that the internet offers a ray of hope.

Peter is confusing change with death, not suprising since he is stuck in a 1950s mindset.

There is less of a range of political parties from the left to the right today?
The evidence shows the reverse. Australia, like most stable democracies, as always been a two party system. The two major parties have always ruled and set policy and created any progress. In fact the vote of the major parties is much lower these days and there are many more independant and minor party represatives in politics than in the past. The problem seems to the be failure of left wing ideology and political parties, not politics.

To maintain his old Marxist fairytale Peter has to cast a Greengrocer's daughter and a B grade hollywood start as the wealthy elite ruling class. They apparently managed to seize back power from the masses by getting resoundingly elected by the masses and implementing the ideas of an Austrian refugee with a Nobel prize.

Next we get the new version of dialectic materialism, where there is not one but three simplistic inevitable outcomes where all is ruination. All of them based on taking a few generalisations and extrapolating them to aburdity. And funny enough Global Warming is only a problem in one that continues to follow capitalism.

Politics is not dead, it has simply discarded the old irrevelant class based framework that Peter is stuck in.

David Watford

Peter,

The annoying fact that our Prime Minister is now saying during an interview that he believes rather than the party believes, is this proving the end of democratic politics and a trend to authoritarianism?

Also find attached, possible future global politics as supported by Paul Kelly of “The Australian” newspaper. He says that the present war on terror, will be long-running. Western nations such as Australia face the prospect of an exceedingly difficult challenge, a challenge with the military only playing a supporting role

Paul Kelly cites David Kilcullen, keynote speaker on the theme of “War and Conflict in the 21st Century.” Kilcullen, who has only recently returned from the US as a special adviser on counter-terrorism, believes the US is in a dilemma. It must maintain military superiority to contain the rise of problem states, yet the core threat America faces, apparently needs far more intellectual nd historical foresight.

Kilcullen’s diagnosis is that two epic trends drive the new warfare, neo-liberal globalisation and US imperialism. There are blowback problems from G8 protestors, environmental extremists, and narco-insurgents, American plans having disrupted their lives in so many different ways - the extreme of the protestors, the Islamics, ready to fight the US and its allies where the massive military combination is weak, in the combination’s own lodgings and in its own streets by the use of increasingly successful suicide bombing..

Suicidal warfare apart from lives lost, has proven cheap, difficult to counter and often effective - as agreed to by Keith Suter, who in an Online essay, cited the successful suicide attacks by the Tamil Tigers, which caused a worried Sri-Lankan government to grant them independence.

Kilcullen’s three-point victory programme is daunting to the extreme. A need for a road map to guide democratic societies under assault, yet the debate post-London is so marked by community revulsion, there is still yet a profound strategic uncertainty.

Paul Kelly believes that the issue now is whether the democratic multicultural state can survive as the 21st century model. There is an urgent need to find the right balance between force and persuasion

Peter,

Politics is "internationalised".

What issues are important:

1. nuclear and WOMD proliferation
2. African poverty
3. terrorism (see 1 above)
4. Integration into larger political units (EU)
5. Rise of India and China
6. International expeditions like Iraq
7. Role of the UN Security Council
8. Role of trade liberalisation and aid in promoting internationalism
9. Global warming

etc

Australia will always be a fringe player on these things and so our politics is limited by our relevance. Therefore we are left with much narrower debates than in America, Europe, India, etc - ie. the big players in these things.

This does not mean our debates are flawed, simply you have the debates that the majority of people feel connected to. Connect with and win:

1. tax and welfare policies
2. "pragmatic" identity issues
3. job creation
4. individual empowerment and social obligations for the empowered

Corin

Dewatt,

You knock Peter about left wing politics, yet your politics at a guess could be rather right wing and incestuously cliquy as if only special people from a special group should be in charge.

Could be okay for a couple of terms, but a tendency towards nepoticism could have such a party breaking rules to stay in power. Fundamental religous groups have this problem, as also organisations such as Freemasonry and even over-dedicated sporting groups.

Economic rationalism can cause problems also, the main reason that Labor is on the wane. It does not suit Labor because it is naturally ultra-right wing, supporting corporates and share-dealing rather than small business and localised cooperatives.

There is nothing new about all this political palaver, Dewatt, having lived through the Great Depression, one develops quite a lot of insight into politics. In fact, your style of politics was thrown out in 1932. It collapsed like a stack of cards. Maybe you would like to take a lesson.