impressions...
I've just finished watching the Mark Latham interview on Andrew Denton's "Enough Rope". Very interesting. Here are some impressions I formed:
Latham is (and has been for quite a while) suffering from depression but he is in absolute denial about this.As I said above, these are just impressions I formed as a result of watching the program. They may all be wrong. For his sake, I hope they are.
There is a huge amount of pain in Latham's life which he has yet to come to terms with.
He feels betrayed by nearly everyone.
He should never have chosen a career in politics.
He is putting up a brave, macho front.
His life is ruled by what his sons think/will think about him.
He's headed either for a nervous breakdown or suicide.
posted by The Editor at
11:20 PM
3 Comments:
I've taped the interview. Did you see it?
I will be getting the book. I want to know what, if anything, he is willing to tell us about his "education" by the American ambassador just after he became the leader of the opposition. It's my reading of him over time that that's the defining moment which derailed Latham. I suspect it's where he was told/shown in no uncertain terms who really runs Australia. It's when hope departed from Latham's universe. That's what my crystal ball tells me. It also tells me it's about a secret deal which was done during WWII. It tells me that someone way back then literally sold us to the Yanks in return for them bailing us out.
The truth is out there. Somewhere.
Of course, don't mind me, I'm just a deluded fool... [mad cackle]
I think most intelligent people are aware we are to some extent beholden to the US for security. It's a given. So it would be nice if politicians on both sides treated us as adults and permitted some discussion of this, some exploration of just how far our assumed independence extends in relation to the imperatives of the Alliance.
This to me is the biggest issue facing Australia (and lots of other countries too). It's unspoken and barely written about, but the limits to our sovereignty imposed by our association with the US underwrite virtually every other issue you can think of... it's the gorilla in the room.
Peter Costello has made his position clear; his elevation would see the Howardian cringe continue. All the way with the USA is his clarion call, though I bet he wishes Katrina hadn't arrived so soon after, placing his ill advised sycophancy into uneasy context. Is the sort of country that can fail it's citizens, it's most underprivileged citizens so spectacularly the sort of countrry we want to be? And do we want to be an automatic selection every time this dying mastodon decides to offend whole regions of humanity who otherwise wouldn't dream of bombing us and our kids?
Where is our line in the sand and why will no major party politician attempt to draw it. The first to do so will get my vote.
Well then, Glenn, I must be one of unintelligent people. I've suspected this for quite some time now. It started to dawn on me not long after I realised that I was not sane. Having studied sane people for quite a while, I came to realise that I did not want to be anything like them.
Seriously though, if we don't fight like the bejaysus to make Australia economically independent and self-sufficient, real friggin' soon, we'll become a basket case economy exploited into oblivion by an emerging Globalised Corporate Feudalism in which the whole world will come under the total control of a few hundred mega-rich "Lords" and their neo-con toadies.
It's not America, it's Globalisation. That's the enemy. America is its slave - as we all soon will be if we don't fight for our very freedom and indepedence. By fight I don't mean violence (that would play right into the hands of the military industrial complex), I mean passive resistance. I mean peaceful people power.
I also fear that the window of opportunity for any break-out to freedom and independence will close pretty soon. It will sooon be illegal to even talk like this.
And then there's what's going to happen to our economy and lifestyles in five to ten years from now when the crippling effects of oil depletion start to kick-in megabigtime. But that's a whole other story...
Of course, we won't actually do anything, we'll just argue and quibble till those of us who haven't starved to death are so desperate that we'll happily sell ourselves for a daily bowl of soma to our new GlobalCorp masters.
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