Re: <nettime> the res publica [4x]

["nettime's_digestive_system" <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net>]

1......Andi Freeman <andi@artec.org.uk>
2......"scotartt" <scot@systemx.autonomous.org>
3......Ian Andrews <iana@cream.ebom.org>
4......"Pr0fessor C0Re[X]" <pr0fessor_c0rex@planetjurai.com>




To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net
From: Andi Freeman <andi@artec.org.uk>
Subject: Re: <nettime> the res publica
Date: Thu, 4 Nov 1999 18:49:08 +0100

As a Australian/UK dual national living in london all I can say is how
pathetic the whole thing looks from a UK media perspective. Not only have
the english just devolved scottish and welsh assemblies but would dearly
love to get rid of the northern irish as well and get down to what really
counts, namely the 12 EU regions that make up these isles. To ask an
english person about the commonwealth is to receive looks of consternation,
to explain to them that a country the other side of the world uses the
queen as its head of state, brings a smile to their face, to tell them
Australians are about to vote to retain this arrangement brings amazement.

Fact is the union itself is barely holding together let alone the
commonwealth. To see Australians valiantly defending it on the TV over the
last week makes me sad. I realise that there are dozens of other issues
that have been rolled into the debate and the new constitution, but to let
the issue drop (for how many years ?) because some more fundamental issues
(that face every country) have arisen is  conservative to say the least. If
you dont start you'll never finish..

As far as it 'not being broke', you only have to look at examples like the
sacking of the Whitlam government, the rape of the environment, severe over
policing and the gradual erosion of individual rights to see that this is
clearly not true.

theres my 50c worth. now I am off to the high commission to get a voting form.

I hope when I next fly home I will land in the new 'Republic of Australia' :-)

Andi Freeman


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From: "scotartt" <scot@systemx.autonomous.org>
To: "melinda rackham" <melinda@subtle.net>, <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net>,
        <recode@autonomous.org>
Subject: Re: <nettime> the res publica
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1999 08:55:05 +1100


----- Original Message -----
From: melinda rackham <melinda@subtle.net>
To: <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net>; <recode@autonomous.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 04, 1999 5:35 PM
Subject: :::recode::: Re: <nettime> the res publica

> i think its important  to remember that australia is currently a
repressive
> rightwing society, where our legislation reflects that the majority
believe
> internet content regulation is a morally sound idea; 10% additional tax
> will give people more disposable income; and the poor really shouldn't
have
> decent health care or access to university educations.
>
> personally i will vote [ yes] for a republic, because something
desparately
> needs to change here,  but like ken im also punting on a [ no] win.

The 'no' case looks set to win a majority in every state on Saturday.
Australia shall remain tied to Mother England for another 50 years, an
international embarrasment.

On the 'yes' side I must say I think the ad where the PM toasts "the
President of the United States", then yet Bill Clinton proposes a toast,
"to Her Majesty the Queen ... of Australia", is very clever. The pause
between 'the Queen' and 'of Australia' is palpable, you can see poor Bill
struggling to avoid a public gaffe and remembering he's in Canberra, not
London (how could one forget, little Johnnie Howard is hardly Tony Blair),
and to add Australia, not The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland. The republicans should not have pulled these punches early on in
the campaign. That ad should have been on every TV station ad break a month
ago. Spoken by Bill Clinton and John Howard, how more obvious can you get?

The thing that appalls me is that by voting 'No' we are letting the
'punishers and the straighteners' keep control. The res publica is an
historically important debate for Australia. The 'no' case types are the
decendants of the 'Sterling' -- the middle class english and petty
officials who emigrated here last century and who wished the country to be
set up as the mirror image of the Old Country, and have a new aristocracy
(the Squattocracy, i.e. themselves) lord it over the serfs. The serfs being
of course convicts, freedmen, less well off free settlers, the native-born
(collectively the 'Currency') - but not the natives, whom they did their
best to eradicate (and these same forces supression of the whole Native
Title and Reconciliation debate is a whole other story). All this in a
period when the English aristocracy itself was in steep decline.

These people's descendants are prepared to run the argument 'Not _this_
replublic' when they really mean _any_ republic. The 'Real Republicans' (ie
the direct electionists) are just rotten, stupid, radical spoilers, who are
short of ideas (no actual MODEL for an elected president is being
proposed), and long on empty rhetoric (even emptier than a lot of
nationalist fervour offered by the Yes case), relying on a completely
vacuous call to populism. PETER REITH for christsakes! Frankly anyone who
buys all that 'politicians republic' hot air is thoroughly stupid for
buying such an illogical arugument (its almost A-logical), and deserves to
live with the pall of shame of GULLIBILITY for the rest of their lives.
Long may they vote Conservative and buy products from cold call phone
salesmen.

regs
scot.

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Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1999 09:33:25 +1100 (EST)
From: Ian Andrews <iana@cream.ebom.org>
To: McKenzie Wark <mwark@laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au>
cc: Nettime List <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net>, scot@autonomous.org
Subject: Re: <nettime> the res publica


The major problem facing voters on Saturday is that the issue of the
republic and the issue of the model for a republic have become hopelessly
conflated.  Australians should be asked quite simply "do you wan't a
republic YES or NO. Yet even this question is loaded and steps away from
the real issue which is the question of the appropriateness of a foreign
head of state. The so-called republic question has been systematically
depoliticised and turned into a question of administration (not that I
think that questions of administration are not important).  The same thing
happened several years ago when the debate was raised and then foundered
over the issue of the flag (notice that no-one is touching the issue of the
flag with a 40 foot (flag) pole). The issue was depoliticised.

When I say depoliticised I am, I suppose, using a definition of politics in
its most abstract sense.  The issue of the monarchy is really a symbolic
issue.  The monarchist model of the present is, of course. not really
monarchist in a practical, day to day, sense.  It really only exists in the
realm of symbols, where it manifests itself at official openings,
commemerations, games, etc.  But these symbols are important because they
effect the way we progress as a society.

The central symbolic issue has largely been ignored in this referendum.
What the monarchy represents above all is a class based society.  Or, to
put it quite simply, that someone can be born to rule while another can be
born to serve.  Class difference has not been eradicated in Australian
society but the concept of egalitarianism has certainly progressed much
further than it has in England.  We should celebrate the fact that we have
progressed (as have all the previous colonies) so far from the mother
country by relinquishing our ties to it. Obviously I have a much more
optimistic view of Australian society than McKenzie whom I take issue with
over a couple of points.

McKenzie Wark wrote:
>
> Most of the critics of public communication approach it through their
> prejudices. Those who think it is declining due to "political correctness"
> aren't really too comfortable with Aboriginal speech, women's speech,
> migrant accents. Any of that is too much. Those who think it is declining
> because of "tabloidisation" really hate the working class, the uneducated,
> and think they should be neither seen nor heard, and need not have their
> tastes or desired catered to. How can we talk about what's good for "the
> people" if all those wogs and welfare mums keep yabbering on?
>

Unfortunately these "wogs and welfare mums" are not the ones who are
"yabbering on," its rightwing thugs like Alan Jones and Piers Ackerman that
have any sort of voice in the tabloid media. Although this kind of liberal
fascism is a problem it pales into insignificance against the problems of
the mass media in Australia.  This lowest common demominator argument that
you are putting forward is really what the mass media do so well and its
results are truly represssive.

> I've long argued that the strategic, economic and political changes at the
> global level meant not only economic change in Australia, but cultural
> change as well. I think we can add to that the belated insight that the
> institution of public conversation is also being forced to adapt. We can't
> take for granted any more who "the people of Australia" are, or what they
> want, or how they might speak -- if given half the chance.
>

Which is why rule imposed by a white monarchy on the other side of the
world is such a ridiculous concept. Perhaps we should keep the monarchy but
change the monarch to someone more appropriate like an asian monarch.
Perhaps one of the Sihanouks, (they will work for anyone) or Imelda Marcos?

Ian Andrews.

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Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1999 02:08:38 -0500
From: "Pr0fessor C0Re[X]" <pr0fessor_c0rex@planetjurai.com>
To: scot@systemx.autonomous.org, <scot@autonomous.org>
Cc: melinda rackham <melinda@subtle.net>, nettime-l@bbs.thing.net,
        recode@autonomous.org
Subject: Re:{clan-l} Re: <nettime> the res publica

>officials who emigrated here last century and who wished the country to be
>set up as the mirror image of the Old Country, and have a new aristocracy
>(the Squattocracy, i.e. themselves) lord it over the

point taken but australia is going to mirror US or UK. most people i know
who come here for a holiday say australia is a small US/UK. even IBM uses
australia as a test case for their new US products because we are SO damn
similar. australia has an identity problem and staying with the queen and
that stupid union jack on our flags isn't gonna help our image grow. while
we stay a small nation with low low migration levels we will be another
US/UK.


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