[csaa-forum] Re: wanting to be effluent Re: [csaa-forum]respinding to the politics of fear
Diane Powell
dipowell at optusnet.com.au
Thu Oct 14 15:03:03 CST 2004
That doesn't make it any less true, especially as it mentioned the
involvement of the union in getting this practice stopped. It was not a
'froth' piece. These columns are often the only way to know what is
really going on, as they rely on sources that don't have a media voice
otherwise. The following piece was humorous, but no less true.
-----Original Message-----
From: csaa-forum-bounces at darlin.cdu.edu.au
[mailto:csaa-forum-bounces at darlin.cdu.edu.au] On Behalf Of
eleanor.brooker at parliament.vic.gov.au
Sent: 14 October 2004 15:17
To: CSAA discussion list
Subject: RE: [csaa-forum] Re: wanting to be effluent Re:
[csaa-forum]respinding to the politics of fear
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
|---------+----------------------------------->
| | "Diane Powell" |
| | <dipowell at optusnet.com.a|
| | u> |
| | Sent by: |
| | csaa-forum-bounces at lists|
| | .cdu.edu.au |
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| | |
| | 14/10/2004 01:37 PM |
| | Please respond to CSAA |
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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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--
"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
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