daggett:

You wonder how our forefathers would regard the outrages commited against democracy by (a long list of grievances).

I submit that our forefathers had their own list of grievances during their time on Earth, that their grievances were of things worse than you listed, and that some were similar to yours in many ways. Way back when, some people were slaves. Men fought for the right to vote. Then women followed suit. Now we free people wrestle over what to vote for.

A hundred years from now, someone will no doubt submit their own list. If we could see into the future, would we see the same complaints we now have? Might they be worse, or would we see them as petty? Could they be of events we cannot yet imagine? With luck, your complaints will have been dealt with and replaced with new complaints. My parents didn't like Elvis Presley, I did. And life goes on.

I don't agree with all thay you say, but it's good to understand what you value. Over time, your issues and those of others must utimately be resolved.

Daggett, perhaps Sheila Newman's comments about all geologists working for the same organisation is an example of the efficiencies caused by the lack of competition because you don't have redundancy in each competing organisation. It is widely acknowledged that much of the pain and social dislocation of the Eastern European bloc leaving communism was the increase in unemployment. The old communist regimes gave everyone a job, Russians used to join queues in work time to buy bread, or whatever the shop had today. This is a good indicator of low productivity. Australians have never been able to wander off the job to go shopping. Of course much of the pain was also caused by the forced adoption of Chicago school economic doctrine that works best with unemployment levels over 40% - like we will shortly be seeing in the United States. Hmmm may be the USA is there already because the lowest 40% of their society lives in poverty.

There is a time to remember our war dead but there is nothing more ghoulish than reburying 90 year old bones with massive pomp and fanfare, how do they know it wasn't a German?

A visit to the War Memorial is fascinating. Its remarkable to see the number of memorials that have been built along ANZAC Ave in the last decade.

daggett “told me how exploration for petroleum and other natural resources was vastly more efficient in the former socialist counties than in the capitalist countries.”

Taking an “economies of scale as the single dimension of performance” approach to everything would see every industry and every human activity managed by a monopoly, be it government or private.

Unfortunately the “monopolist” approach to economic management comes with some inescapable disadvantages, the most serious of which are
No competition, therefore
no performance comparison,
no incentive to improve,
no consumer choice
all of which lead to moribund stagnation.

To say nothing of corruption through institutionalized vested interest.

Whilst “big business” is criticized by socialists who want “big government”, it is always worthwhile to remember that within the most effective capitalist economies 65-70% of all employment in the private sector comes from small to medium sized enterprises.

It is these small to medium size enterprises, encouraged by libertarian capitalism but spurned by socialism, who give expression and opportunity to the inventors and innovators and entrepreneurial risk-takers of new products and processes, on which tomorrows industries will be built, less so the big-corporations and never, ever “government” of any size.

I agree with billie’s last post. We should respect the memory of all those who died defending the democratic values we all benefit from but we should remember them all equally, not only WWI and WWII but also those who happened to fall in Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan.

billie,

If the former 'socialist' economies gave everyone a job, at least that's a point in their favour.

The unstated problem is that all of these countries would have been overpopulated and would have had more people than could have been gainfully employed, at least working a normal 40 hour week. As the alternative would have been either mass unemployment or a greater rate of destruction of their natural capital, employing more people than were actually needed would not have been an altogether bad solution.

So, to judge the 'socialist' economies as less efficient than capitalist economies on this basis is not altogether fair.

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Glad you appreciate an alternative viewpoint, Daisym as I do also.

I believe the assaults upon democracy that I described will have far more serious and enduring consequences if they are not stopped.

Anyone who maintains that the achievement of democracy in the last 200 years is guaranteed to endure is naive.

At the moment the oligarchs have achieved much of what they wanted in Australia within the facade of a formerly democratic political system. This includes privatisations and other supposed economic 'reforms' of recent decades for none of which they had any electoral mandate whatsoever, with the arguable exception of Jeff Kennett's Victoria.

Can I suggest you read Naomi Klein's bestselling "The Shock Doctrine" of 2007, which should be easily found in most book shops for around $26.95 from my recollection. She shows that what has happened in Australia and New Zealand in recent years (although she didn't specifically discuss these countries) is only one means on a spectrum by which democracy has been subverted in order to allow the world's wealthy elites to steal commonly owned wealth. At the other end of this spectrum we have military coups, invasions and the murder and imprisonment and torture of opponents as occurred in Latin America, Russia and Iraq.

Daisym

‘History helps us identify who we are and where we came from. History helps guide future generations toward greater things.’

This entirely depends on how the official historical narrative is shaped. It can, and does, also guide future generations to an over-identification with and over-reliance on war.

For example, perusing my son’s Modern and Ancient History curricula and their exam/assignment content, I estimate that at least 90% is directly related to war. This represents no change from when I did these subjects at school in the 70s and 80s. A similar emphasis on war can be seen in other official history narratives – e.g. news reporting, film, television and literature,

Yet, this is a gross distortion of the history of humanity – in fact, the very opposite of reality. For virtually every society that has ever existed, war comprises only a minor part of its history. The bulk of any nation’s history – indeed world history – is made up of NON-war enterprises, i.e. building and maintaining communities and cultures.

Most official historical narratives are conjuring tricks. They trawl through the past to focus only on the wars, giving them a ridiculously excessive amount of cultural space - and consequently the intended but misguided impression that war is essential to the human condition.

Little wonder that so many on the conservative side of politics view the largely non-war SOSE emphasis as deeply threatening to the purity of ‘factual’ (aka war-based) History curricula - and feel compelled to fight their so-called History Wars.

jacinta - you little beauty. I read your critique several times over to get the gist in perspective.Regarding the AWM, pusillanimous toady Rudd; the Gallipoli campaign; the cultural cringe denial of our rightful place in History. The PM, Gillard, modern educationist are urging History to the curriculum for schools. But not at any price. Keating, not long ago criticized Rudd for his blinkered understanding of the Kokoda campaign and aftermath.

Repeating the often sanitised and jazzed-up version of Aust history ala today's historians, is as comtemptuous as the myths and folklore surrounding the Eureka stockade episode.

Are Historians answerable to a code of Journalistic ethics ?
Is there transparency, integrity, and respect for the truth ? Seems the lexicon " honesty " is a foreign phrase and absent from Aust/English dictionaries ! Are they paid, morally corrupt sycophants, ostensibly to dance to the tune of the pied puppeteer ?

Ex-shop steward and avowed unionist Qld Anna Bligh - no relation to that nefarious Mutiny-on-the-Bounty captain Jack Sparrow, only recently commissioned Scott Fitgerald ( historian-come-laude ) to rewrite Queensland's History. It will undoubtedly be a bottler. Out of bounds e.g warts, Palm Island debacle, Fitzgerald Commission, CJC inquiries,etc, the seedy side of the ' smart' state's closely guarded family closet. The travesty will be Bligh's vision splendid of Qld's utopia. The mythical Sangrila, for generations of school children to recite verbatim.

You will do as I dictate - just as tin-pot dictators like Mugabe, Idi Amin, Saddam etc, before her. Anybody who advocates flagrantly polluting the State's water supply, with RAW sewage, sludge from abattoirs, refinery's, tanneries and hospital, infectious diseases etc even though there is an overabundance of water for the next millennium, with 400 klm of pipeline to major Dams, and the Tugun desalination plant is bordering on delusional megla-mania. Generations of banana bender's lives will be imperilled for decades. Funny, the Opposition in Parliament are still squabbling over who should be their fearless Leader ?? Can't wait for the next elections. Referendums are a thing of the past now.

Revisiting Gallipoli as I did and paying homage to