Australian political changes and US political foolishness

[tcpip]

It seems that the West Australian Labor government has been re-elected by the skin of its teeth. A very cogent explanation of why the election was so close by crankynick basically blames a poor Labor campaign, although the Liberals were helped by astoundingly biased reporting from the West Australian newspaper. In a very sensible effort to shore up what has become a particularly unpopular government, the Labor Party in New South Wales has finally rid itself of the pro-privitisation treasurer and Premier; the former was sacked by the latter and then the latter was sacked by his parliamentary colleagues. I have hopes that Nathan Rees and Carmel Tebbutt will be able to 'do the right thing' and regain the trust of the NSW public.

Far to the north and east, the U.S. political landscape received a shockwave of sorts when Republican Presidential hopeful John McCain appointed Sarah Palin as the Vice-President nominee. This self-described "bulldog with lipstick" has come with a lot of attention, with her viewpoints on banning books, teaching Creationism in schools (but not comprehensive sex eduation), and opposing abortion in nearly all instances. What is remarkable about the choice is that (a) it shows how much the Republican Party is still under the influence of the fundamentalist religious lobby which seeks to impose their narrow worldview on the American public and (b) how irresponsible, divisive this choice is which, yet another sign of how completely unfit McCain is for the office of President.

In my own life everything is going very well. Ran a good game of RuneQuest on Sunday (Borderlands, Jezra's Rescue for those who know such things), and have received some excellent endorsements for RPG Review. Have been dealing productively with a number of work issues relating from everything from a particular Drupal module, HR and motivation issues for administrative staff (I've decided that our new administrative staff should at least do our Introduction to VPAC Computing course to give them a better sense of what we're on about), to dealing with some unprofessional behaviour from a software vendor.

Comments

Re: value 4 $ ?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I doubt it. Like most political parties they're addicted to power, and power at all costs.

Re: value 4 $ ?

[cheshirenoir.livejournal.com]

I think krjalk originally suggested that one to me. It works this way:
The Republican inner circle realise they have seriously screwed a) the Economy, b) the Middle East and c) the Environment. They have hard evidence that at least 2 of these will come to a terrible head in the next 2-3 year timeframe. So they UNelect themselves so when the brown stinky stuff hits the loud swirly thing, the DemoFallGuys are in power to take the rap with the short attention span voters, guaranteeing power forevermore for the Republican New World Order.

As a political move, if you were working the long term angles it's not bad. The whole Sen Palintine thing gives them an excuse to purge the extreme religious right from their own party when the time is right. "It was these loonies who cost us the LAST election (purge purge purge)"

Re: value 4 $ ?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, but you're thinking in terms of logical and term-based strategy. :) There's two flaws in that argument. Firstly, giving up power voluntarily is so extraordinary rare one can honestly say there is an institutional psychology to never give it up regardless of the circumstances (I think of one government in Costa Rica that voluntarily relinquished power). Secondly, an entire term is far too long in politics; even if the situation in the middle-east, the economy and the environment is seriously screwed in four years time, they wouldn't care. They just need to get 50%+1 on one particular day in four years time. Everything else can go to hell.