Teaching Australia and the Two World Wars I confront again the puzzle of Australian enthusiasm to sign up for European wars. Recent Australian nationalists have deplored this: Gallipoli is a cinematic expression of this nationalist despair. If race was as central to Australian identity in the early twentieth century then why did Australian sign up so enthusiastically for a war with Germany? Germans are not seen as the racial other, opinion polls from the 1950s showed they ranked highly among preferred migrants ahead of our gallant wartime Greek allies. Is there a contradiction between Australia’s radicalism manifest in the high levels of Labor support and imperial loyalty? Thinking about this after reading the early chapters of Bean’s The Story of ANZAC. His description of prewar Australia as largely rural and egalitarian has attracted scorn. Continue reading Anzacs, class and nation
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Stephanie Peatling has a fairly lazy article arguing that Tony Abbott has no particular problem with women voters based on a simple bivariate analysis, rather than the multivariate approach that is required to answer this question. In recent decades Labor has for many women ceased to be the party of masculine class aggressiveness and instead become the party of health and education. Labor’s advances among women voters are one aspect of the consolidation of Labor as the party of social liberalism (on the past of social liberalism see Marian Sawer’s interesting The Ethical State). Yet health is not necessarily unchallenged Labor’s terrain, the Coalitions strong performance in 2004 owed much to its success in challenging Labor’s advnatage among voters as the party best to administer health services. How much of Labor’s advantage on health, and thus a key aspect of their appeal to women voters, is being undercut by the current controversy over assisted reproductive technologies. Reductions in medicare funding for IVF procedures have generated substantial concern among many women. Is this a sleeper electoral issue, even if the government’s motives seem little different from that of the Coalition in government? In the US currently debate about the political impact of health care reform, public opinion is on average mildly hostile, although this partially reflects misinformation and some of the opponents of the current proposals think it does not go far enough. Can it be advantageous for a government to do unpopular things? Joshua Tucker asks: Continue reading American health care reform and NSW power privatization More evidence of the rightward drift of American public opinion on economic issues apparent in distrust of unions from Pew Research Center: Favorable views of labor unions have plummeted since 2007, amid growing public skepticism about unions’ purpose and power. Currently, 41% say they have a favorable opinion of labor unions while about as many (42%) express an unfavorable opinion. Continue reading Union-free America? Noteworthy that in the last few weeks liberal commentators, such as Mathew Yglesias and Jonathon Chait, have begun to seriously contemplate the possibility, even the likelihood of the Republicans securing a House of Representatives majority this year. Some of this commentary has been in response to the recent analysis of Harry Joe who has argued that the substantial Republican advantage in the generic ballot (which first emerged according to Gallup around November) points to large gains. Continue reading Republicans resurgent Recent commentary by some on the left in Australia and the US has highlighted the extent of public confusion about economic policy and criticised populist campaigns by conservatives against debt and deficits. This is certainly true but it also counts against the tradition of left-wing populism that has tended to attribute economic liberalism to an elite conspiracy. Continue reading Lenin, economic management and public opinion How are we to understand Labor’s loss of ground on environmental policy manifest in declining public support for its Emmissions Trading Scheme. Public opinion about environmental questions is complex. There is a broad sentiment in favour of wilderness preservation, contrary to some myths it doesn’t vary much by social background or educational level. This diffuse sentiment explains the steady expansion of national parks and other protected areas. Continue reading Green bubbles One thing the contemporary Labor Party has become very good at is winning elections, but a cost of this is that Labor loses badly. Perhaps the fact that so much of the active membership of the ALP is now dependent for the livelihood on Labor governments has encouraged this determination to win at all costs. Continue reading Learning how to lose With the American right apparently resurgent useful to consider the balance of its components. The focus of the tea-parties on tax and debt might indicate a decline in the influence of the religious right as Dana Goldstein suggets but Sarah Posner suggests that the religious right remains highly influential. Inclined to agree with Posner here. Sarah Palin certainly combines both elements. Worth remembering the current arguments of the religious right who are currently rallying to the cause of excluding gays and lesbians from the military: Continue reading The religious right & homophobia |
  
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Copyright © 2010 Geoff Robinson - All Rights Reserved |
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