I will filter out your points and tackle them one by one.
The kind of right wing ideology that I am talking about is based on the belief that those who currantly have positions of power and authority are there because they have earned them and that they are therefor worthier citizens. If you don't believe there are people who think like that, try going to an up-market private school like the one I attended: there are.
I don't dispute this, but it seems to me you are stating the obvious: as far as I'm aware, in societies such as ours, past and present, it tends to be the better educated, more priveliged people who end up in power, because they have the best chances of ending up there. I see nothing unusual or conspiratory about this - I'd prefer to vote for slightly shifty, well educated and well brought up member A than honest, but uneducated, poverty-stricken member B.
They also believe in a universal set of qualities that can be called 'Australian values, American values, Christian values, ideals of democracy etcetera.' These values include the concept of elections (which is a good thing and which moderate and left wing people generally agree with) but do not exclude the use of subtle media teckniques (such as the use of euphamistic language), scare campeigns (such as the 'war on terror'), appeals to 'the official' used to steer people into a certain way of thinking on the basis that ideas are officially accepted. You have probably noted a lot of the more subtle teckniques used to control people. An obvious yet often unnoticed example is the use of transparent bus shelters with walls that don't extend to the ground to stop homeless people from loitering.
These universal qualities you mention strike me as nothing more than buzzwords which politicians use because they resonate with the public. Also, as to the "subtle media techniques", "scare campaigns" and "appeals to official", can I provide this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda
Propaganda is a type of message aimed at influencing the opinions or behavior of people.
There's nothing new about propaganda, and again, it is no cause for concern. You can't sit there and tell me whichever party was in power wouldn't do exactly the same thing (with taxpayer money, no less. I personally think political parties should be banned from advertising, but should be required to release a detailed document stating their aims and goals, and to which they should be held accountable after the fact.)
And what's with the bus shelters? Maybe you're right about it being to stop loitering, but I don't consider that a bad thing, plus a glass shelter is nicer than a concrete one. As far as the walls not extending to the ground, I don't think I've seen one that isn't like this in my entire life, except in rural areas?
When the subtle teckniques of persuasion don't work, there are plenty or rumers about the old fashioned 'hard power' forms of persuasion being employed. Maxine McHue, for example, recieved anonymous death threats as soon as she decided to run against John Howard. Journalists who have disagreed with the government's accusations of 'being unbalenced' on the basis that 'there wasn't anything pro government that could have been shown that night' or 'we are reporting the truth and the truth is that the liberals are doing somthing wrong and the other party isn't' suddenly losing their jobs. Most of us are aware to some extent of these things.
This is just sensationalist. Unless you have evidence that these things were explicitly cause of the government, I think you're being too conspiracy-theorist here.
On a larger scale, this belief in the existing power structures translates to a further belief in the supremicy of the west over the rest of the world. John Howard, for example, refers to 'the prestige' of America.
What works for the individual extends to many - the west has a supremacy over the rest of the world, because the west is in the best position to be in that seat. First world, industrialised nations with stable, democratic regimes which have suffered no major problems (like a depression etc) in the last half-century
are superior to war torn, factionally divided nations which have seen war to the last half century and have no stable government.
'Fostering democracy' is referred to as one of the goals of the war in Iraque (now that the previous gole of finding WMD's has been proven ill-founded). The idea that the currant government is not going to get popular support is never talked about. The idea that there may be an alternative way of running a country that could be negotiated by the local people according to their own values and ideas is never considered.
Yes, Iraq is a fuckup. The reason it's not talked about seems fairly obvious to me - if Howard were to admit the reality of the situation (and that we really can't withdraw in the near future without it going to shit), can you imagine how quickly Rudd, and people such as yourselves, would jump on the political bandwagon to condemn Howard? He's just being sensible, as far as a leader is concerned.
I've been doing a unit at uni on Islam, and I wish I had done it earlier. Democracy will not work in Iraq. Muslims vote according to their religious faction - Shiite, Sunni or the Kurdish. In fact, Iraq as it is will probably not work - it needs to be divided between the three groups, because they cannot live together peacefully on equal grounds. I don't know what kind of governing system you're thinking the Iraqis could implement, but if you can think of one that would mean all three groups could live on equal footing, then please, forward your suggestion to the relevant people.
Creating countries in the image of America is persued, not becuse its the best way for the people, but because it generally leads to markets that consumer American products in the absence of a government powerful enough to have them banned.
That's nonsense. And anyway - are you saying that you would prefer the US traded with countries which would be willing to enact regulations to prevent it's denizens from consuming whatever goods they like?
There are plenty of countries in the world with much better living conditions than the US. Australia, for example, is much more liveable than the US despite having a much lower GDP per capita. This has been the case for thirty years, at least. Why? Becayse the conservatives are less powerful here. Here there is far more balence because we have a strong alternative government and because we have unions that are taken seriously.
According to the
Human Development Index information available on wikipedia, Australia is about 1% better place to live than the US. I won't totally debase your claim here, but I will say that the HDI is compiled using various data, such as life expectancy, education etc, and though these factors are impacted by the government, they are also influenced by the nature of the society as well. For example, the constitution and all it's personal rights rulings would make for a different place to live than Australia, which doesn't have the same mechanisms.
Globalisation is one of the many tools used by corperate America to further its cause. By telling companies they are free to move, the US have created a price war in which countries compete to provide the cheapest labour and the lowest taxes. Companies don't relocate their headquaters to China or South America: only their factories. This allows the conservatives to swell their ranks by reabilitating factory workers into bureaucrats. It adds dramatically to the power of the US cultural empire because it seperates its actions from its leaders, preventing accountability. Of course, conservative leaders in Australia are allowed to share in this as part of 'the west' and reap the same sort of benefits.
This is just more sensationalist hoo-har. Companies send their factories etc overseas for only one reason - profit. Wages are lower in countries where there is an abundance of labour compared to capital - places like China and India. So countries move their factories to these countries and pay cheaper wages, instead of paying people in their home country wages which have been inflated by unions. It means consumers in the home country can get their goods cheaper, because they are not paying for their countrymen's higher wages.
Universities are full of sociologists like me who are very concerned, which is why they are among the first victims of the conservative government's agenda: being gradually starved of funds, forced to run only courses that benefit the economy and have all their staff meet 'performance targets' that prevent any real research being done by measuring people's usefullness based on the quantity of papers they have produced, not the quality.
Whether universities are being pushed to do certain courses, or starved of funds, I don't know. I do know, however, that as a graduate, I would like to be studying things which are going to be relevant in the world I live in - things that are going to hep me get a job later. Performance targets are there to ensure funds, which could be spent on things life infrastructure, health care etc (i.e. things that taxpeyers who never go to university might want) are not wasted.
There are very serious debates going on as to wheather globalisation is inevitable or not. I can't relate all thats been said, but I suggest you read some of the papers written by us sociologists on the matter. Certainly there are aspects of it that have apparently become self sustaining. It is, however, a very human activity, with human actors and ideology behind it. The apparently self sustaining aspects such as the migration of companies are very much overstated in a lot of the literature in terms of scale. Its also worth noteing that during the peak of the British Empire, trade was more international and more movenment of goods and people was taking place relative to the total population than is occurring today. Certainly tecknology hase changed, but ideas have changed a lot more. Any trend that is driven by ideology is a choice, not a fait acompli.
As for the aspect of globalisation you're talking about, which is usually referred to as 'cultural globalisation' (as opposed to economic globalisation), it certainly has the potential to be a very positive trend. Increased contact between cultures can, if it is managed well, lead to better intercultural understanding and genuine communication. Of course there will be conflics along the way as people struggle to reconcile eachother's ideas, but gradually each of us will become more tolerant. There are also dangers such as cultural empirialism, where more powerful (economically or numerically) cultures 'smother' smaller cultures. On the bright side, often new ideas are created as cultures mix. I wouldn't want to stop this process even if I could. I enjoy my part of it as most of my close friends and my wife are from overseas.
You've not really made any new points here. (Though I would say that British international trade was greater at the peak of the empire probably because Britain then had free reign of the nations to whom she could send her goods, because competition was low, and few other nations were as industrious as she was.) As far as globalisation is concerned, in my opinion, we shouldn't fight it if it's going to happen, but we don't necessarily need to encourage it willy-nilly. At the end of the day, it's not regimes which cause this, it's the choices made by millions of individuals around the world.
Thats the basic gist of what I was getting at with the above comments. Like I said: its not an essay and I haven't left my computer to find referenced during the course of writing it. There are certainly grounds for these concerns and a lot has been written in support of it. Of course, if you believe that the ways of the west truely are supreme and you would have everyone follow them, then you may believe that John Howard is a good mainstream example to us all and that we should all vote for him. I, however, cringe at the thought.
I'll be voting for Howard again, because I can't see what Rudd offers that is any better - you certainly didn't make mention of any of the benefits of the labour party, only the negatives of the Liberals - and Howard is a man of integrity: I feel that in his 11 years in office, he has maintained his ideologies, and those things which he considers to be of national importance, such as economic strength. For me, a well-functioning economy is the most important thing, because once that goes to shit, then all the things that Labour voters complain about only get worse (health care, wages, unemployment), so Labour gets voted in, and they try to fix those problems by strangling the economy more, which just makes the problems worse.
Wow, this was long. Since we've both had big rants, Taiwan, how's about we both just make smaller posts from now on, so we can keep this debate flowing more smoothly.