[csaa-forum] Re: wanting to be effluent Re: [csaa-forum] respinding to the politics of fear

Thu Oct 14 14:47:00 CST 2004

Dear Di,

You don't think it might have been prudent to add that the column you were
reading in the Oz was actually The Diary and that this "article" is more or
less a froth piece sitting right alongside the following?

 Humour Czech list                                                                               

 STEVE Price, Sydney's 2UE afternoon host, has no sense of humour. We can prove it. Talking      
 about Monday's crocodile attack at a Cape York campsite, Price told his listeners he was        
 terrified of being attacked by a crocodile, before opening the talkback lines. Caller:          
 ``Crocodiles hunt in pairs, and years ago there was a Polish guy and a Czechoslovakian guy up   
 in the area, and it was very hot. They decided they'd go in swimming, they couldn't read the    
 signs. And all they found was their clothes on the bank. They came looking for the crocodiles   
 and they caught the female, opened it up and the Polish bloke was inside, and they said, `Well, 
 no worries, the Czech's in the mail'.'' Price: ``Oh, really? God, there's some shocking stories 
 involving crocodiles. The things scare the hell out of me.''                                    

Who's fear mongering here?

To me : the following text

 ABC party poopers                                                                               

 HOW would you feel if your boss asked you if you were a member of a political party? Well, that 
 is precisely what the ABC is doing, insisting radio staff disclose their political affiliations 
 as part of annual reviews of their job descriptions. Graeme Thomson, the secretary of the ABC   
 staff union, the Community and Public Sector Union, wrote to managing director Russell Balding  
 yesterday demanding the national broadcaster ``cease and desist'' from the practice. ``The      
 initiative is, in the eyes of the CPSU, naive, ill-considered and intrusive. The membership or  
 otherwise of a political party, or of a religious order, Boy Scouts or the local P&C            
 Association should be of no concern to the Corporation and are not issues that the Corporation  
 has any right to enquire into.'' What's next? Blood tests?                                      

Could feasibly be read as a) left wing propaganda and fear mongering by the
CPSU b) an attempt, clumsy or otherwise, to identify the outside interests
of employees possibly with a view to setting up one of those corporate
social responsibility programs that are so much in vogue with HR
departments on the cutting edge of management 'theory' since reading
between the lines the question was not about political involvement
specifically, but about CIVIL SOCIAL involvement generally. (Political
parties being located in the civil and not the public sphere in governance
ideas and ideals for some reason I don't quite understand) or as a final
option, just very bad invasive, personally intrusive and poorly thought out
internal working policy.  Given that the ABC is thoroughly accountable to
the provisions of the Privacy Act and the Equal Opportunity Act, I don't
know that you needed to go so far overboard.

I feel like I am living through the Cold War here.

Time for a reality check.

I have a degree in cultural studies AND I work for a Liberal.  Whether that
qualifies me to be consided capable of being intelligent, ethically-aware
or, um, what was the other category that the group uses to indicate what it
takes to be self evident about itself?  Oh, yes 'informed'  you can draw
your own conclusions. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. : )

Between the presumptions as to the  who is on the list; BOTH calls to
modify the constitution of democracy in Australia, so that in the future
elections in this country will produce the 'right' result (for whom?) and
the emotive outburts objectifying, demeaning and othering people who
committed the thought crime of expressing difference with your world view -
whatever their reasons and however subjectively or objectively, morally or
immorally, well or badly founded their basis for doing so may have been, I
am having a gay old time laughing at the disparity between what various
people thought would happen at the weekend and what did and the close to
irrational conclusions people are arriving at by way of getting to the
bottom of the 'problem.'

Sam - if your post was supposed to be amusing I seriously suggest you think
long and hard before launching that stand up comedy career.  Obviously
university buildings and salaries grow on trees if you think there is
little outlay involved in providing an educational system.

In answer to Tseen : The AEC reports that

       Across Australia (there are) 13,021,126 electors enrolled to vote    

http://vtr.aec.gov.au/

where the largest segment of the 7Million non enrolled will be children
under the age of 18.

Last, but not least, let me call it to your attention that LABOR
preferencing is what has gotten Family First up in the Senate in Victoria
and into the balance of power nationally. Meaning that if you voted above
the line and not below it, congratulations: you voted conservative.... As
if being 'left' means that you can't fit this category anyway.

So.  Thank you for the flurry of posts. Glad to see we are off on another
tangent.  I am going back to being a lurker now.

Until next time,

Eleanor Brooker

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  |       Subject:  RE: [csaa-forum] Re: wanting to be effluent                                                  |
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Hi Andrew, on spreading fear, Howard sure pushes the buttons of the 'E'
team currently running the ABC. I read in the Oz this morning that at MD
Russell Balding has been insisting that journalists and programmers declare
their political allegiance and declare what political party they belong to,
if any, in their annual performance reviews.

Di
-----Original Message-----
From: csaa-forum-bounces at darlin.cdu.edu.au
[mailto:csaa-forum-bounces at darlin.cdu.edu.au] On Behalf Of Andrew Murphie
Sent: 14 October 2004 13:29
To: csaa-forum at lists.cdu.edu.au
Subject: Re: [csaa-forum] Re: wanting to be effluent

Hi All,

I must admit I wonder if many of these "reasons" aren't, despite their
reality as phantoms, phantoms nevertheless.

Perhaps it is difficult to talk about the current economies of fear (all
concerning "security" - economic, territorial, the family ? I would add
"cognitive security") because this fear stalks the academic world as much
as anywhere and we could no longer point fingers elsewhere in blame, but
would have to challenge ourselves at this level. Fear ? and a whole complex
machinery surrounding its production and maintenance - seemed to me to be
the clear election winner, the milieu of the election, and Howard's
singular achievement in office. I mean he's made himself the button to push
whenever he likes, and the content is just an afterthought. Fear provides
the reasons most things were said or not said, done or not done ? or maybe
I'm just a scared-y cat and everyone else is thinking clearly ...

If it's not just me, ...  the importance of new, alternative economies of
affect that some in the list have mentioned ? Bifo mentioned "love"
recently. I must say I was shocked.

A

On 14/10/04 12:41 PM, "Brett Neilson" <b.neilson at uws.edu.au> wrote:

      >Yes francis - I see no necessary direct link at all - things are
      >Incidentally my comment re houses was about people in general be
      they in
      >Liverpool,  Balmain,  Bankstown or wherever - after all  people are
      just
      >trying to make lives for themselves, and why shouldn't they? ( and I
      don't
      >believe they are all 'dupes' ( or dopes)).
      >Jeannie
      >BTW I have the latest Freedom catalogue if anyone wants a quick
      rundown

      >---- Original Message -----
      >From: "Francis Maravillas" <Francis.Maravillas at uts.edu.au>
      >To: "CSAA discussion list" <csaa-forum at lists.cdu.edu.au>
      >Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 6:54 PM
      >Subject: Re: [csaa-forum] RE: wanting to be effluent
      >
      >
      >I agree, Jeannie. There seems to be a perception that people who
      have nice
      >a house can't be critical, progressive or 'leftish'. Class/cultural
      >capital distinctions do not necessarily correlate with political
      >positionalities (or voting behavior) - and even Bourdieu
      acknowledges that.
      >
      >Francis

      Hey Jeannie,

      I agree with Francis too and strongly so. But shouldn't this point be

      pushed a little more to say that class cannot be reduced to
      consumption,
      taste, or cultural capital. Not that anyone on the list has made that

      conflation but the discussion did drift immediately to consumption,
      an
      important topic but not the only one at stake.

      If the category 'aspirational' has any analytical grip in the wake of
      the
      election (and I'm open to the suggestion that we have to invent new
      concepts) it is in the intersection between complex processes of
      social
      recomposition (based partly, as Melissa notes, in the changing
      relations
      between work and non-work) and an ossified geography of political
      representation. Where are the marginal seats? That is a key question
      in
      analysing the election. And, at that point, there is a need to
      reintroduce
      an argument about the spatial order of the city (recognising the
      passage of
      that order beyond simple centre/periphery distinctions). Not to
      isolate the
      processes of class recomposition to certain areas but to understand
      how
      they intersect the zero-sum game of representative democracy.

      I am impressed by what Amanda says about the need for a politics of
      empathy/affect within and between changing class relations/conflicts.
      For
      me the starting point for this would have to be the distrust of
      politicians
      and the disengagement with representative democratic processes
      (watching
      Idol instead of the debate, etc.). Perhaps there is room for opening
      and
      dialogue with those of us trying to understand how democratic
      processes
      might operate beyond (or even underneath) representation. But this
      will
      have to involve multiple engagements, through ethnic communities
      perhaps or
      everyday practices on particular sites.

      Often this may be prepolitical but it can also involve a different
      kind of
      politics, a politics of relation. Either way it is important to
      understand
      how the political emerges. And how it functions in a complex media
      environment with a multiplication of channels and possibilities for
      connection. But here I feel we are reaching the limits of cultural
      analysis.

      Brett

      _______________________________________

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      www.csaa.asn.au

--
"I thought I had reached port; but I seemed to be cast
back again into the open sea" (Deleuze and Guattari, after Leibniz)

Dr Andrew Murphie - Senior Lecturer
School of Media and Communications, University of New South Wales, Sydney,
Australia, 2052
web:http://media.arts.unsw.edu.au/homepage/Staff/Murphie/
fax:612 93856812 tlf:612 93855548 email: a.murphie at unsw.edu.au
room 311H, Webster Building_______________________________________

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