Burdett Loomis: U.S. could learn from Australia

By Burdett Loomis
Published Sunday, Oct. 6, 2013, at 12 a.m.

A month ago, voters in Australia overwhelmingly elected a conservative government, the Coalition of Liberal (trust me) and National parties. Within a week, the defeated Labor Party had handed over the reins of government, regrouping to fight another day.

After spending five months watching the Australian election from my Fulbright perch at Adelaide’s Flinders University, I was scarcely surprised by the results; the Australian Labor Party has been tearing itself apart for years, and the Coalition’s Tony Abbott ran a tight, safe campaign for prime minister.

Most remarkable to me, as an American, was that the stakes of the campaign were so low. Oh, there were some divisive issues, such as asylum for refugees and mining taxes, along with a proposed repeal of a poorly designed carbon tax.

Still, the issues were modest, and subsequent changes will be scarcely noticed by average Aussies, whose distaste for politics rivals that of most Americans.

But what sets Aussies apart is their overall consensus on many major issues that continue to bedevil Americans.

Let’s take just three: health care, the minimum wage and gun control.

Americans cannot have a coherent discussion about health care, as many pundits and partisans demonize a system that isn’t even in place. We putter along with a minimum wage ($7.25) that condemns to poverty those workers who receive it. And we continue to put up with 31,000 gun fatalities a year, the highest total of any nation not at war.

What has Australia done on these explosive issues? First, on health care, in the 1970s and 1980s those independent-minded Aussies adopted a comprehensive public-private system of health care (eventually labeled Medicare), funded largely by general revenues, that has become an important part of the country’s social fabric.

As for the minimum wage, Australia boasts the world’s highest, at a remarkable $16.88 per hour, more than twice that of the United States. Economic doomsters here would argue that such a rate is unsustainable and that small businesses would close in droves. Yet Australia was the only major industrialized country to come through the recent worldwide downturn without falling into recession.

Aussie workers at McDonald’s and coffee shops earn a living wage, and their purchasing power helps keep the Australian economy in gear. Are prices higher there? A bit. But Australians widely support this policy, which produces far more economic equality than the U.S. enjoys.

Finally, guns. In 1996, 35 people were killed in the Port Arthur massacre, and the conservative Coalition government enacted substantial controls on owning firearms, especially handguns. Although overall gun-related deaths have not changed since then, there have been no significant large-scale incidents. Gun control remains an issue for some Australians, but the public consensus has favored the policy, which produces a firearms death rate that is one-tenth of the rate in the United States.

So, a month ago the conservative opposition battled it out with the Labor government and won control of the government. Power shifted, yet these basic societal agreements constitute a solid core of the day-to-day Australian existence.

We should be so lucky.

Burdett Loomis is a political science professor at the University of Kansas.



Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/2013/10/06/3038596/burdett-loomis-us-could-learn.html?#storylink=cpy

Basically "America could learn from Australia essentially having two centerist parties".

As Obama's Asia "pivot" falters‚ China steps into the gap


KUALA LUMPUR: When then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared two years ago "We are back to stay" as a power in Asia, the most dramatic symbol of the policy shift was the planned deployment of 2,500 U.S. Marines in northern Australia, primed to respond to any regional conflict.
At this point in time, however, there is not a single U.S. Marine in the tropical northern city of Darwin, according to the Australian defence ministry. Two hundred Marines just finished their six-month tour and will not be replaced until next year, when 1,150 Marines are due to arrive.
The original goal of stationing 2,500 Marines there by 2017 remains in place, but the lack of a U.S. presence there two years after the policy was announced underlines questions about Washington's commitment to the strategic "pivot" to Asia.
President Barack Obama's cancellation of a trip this week to four Asian nations and two regional summits due to the U.S. government shutdown has raised further doubts over a policy aimed at re-invigorating U.S. military and economic influence in the fast-growing region, while balancing a rising China.
While U.S. and Asian diplomats downplayed the impact of Obama's no-show, the image of a dysfunctional, distracted Washington adds to perceptions that China has in some ways outflanked the U.S. pivot.
"It's symptomatic of the concern in Asia over the sustainability of the American commitment," said Carl Baker, director of the Pacific Forum at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Hawaii.
As embarrassed U.S. officials announced the cancellations last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping was in Indonesia announcing a raft of deals worth about $30 billion and then in Malaysia to announce a "comprehensive strategic partnership", including an upgrade in military ties.
He was en route to this week's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Bali and the East Asia Summit in Brunei, where Obama will no longer be able to press his signature trade pact or use personal diplomacy to support allies concerned at China's assertive maritime expansion.
Since 2011, China has consolidated its position as the largest trade partner with most Asian countries and its direct investments in the region are surging, albeit from a much lower base than Europe, Japan and the United States. Smaller countries such as Laos and Cambodia have been drawn so strongly into China's economic orbit that they have been called "client states" of Beijing, supporting its stance in regional disputes.
Leveraging its commercial ties, China is also expanding its diplomatic, political and military influence more broadly in the region, though its efforts are handicapped by lingering maritime tensions with Japan, the Philippines and several other nations.
"For countries not closely allied with the U.S., Obama's no-show will reinforce their policy of bandwagoning with China," wrote Carl Thayer, emeritus professor at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra.

"BLUE-WATER" EXPANSION
China, for instance, has been the biggest trade partner of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) since 2009, and its direct investments are surging, bringing with them increased economic and diplomatic influence.
Chinese companies invested $4.42 billion in Southeast Asia in 2012, up 52 percent on the previous year, according to Chinese state media citing the China-ASEAN Business Council. Investments into neighbouring Vietnam rocketed 147 percent.
China is demonstrating that it can deploy forces far beyond its coastal waters on patrols where they conduct complex battle exercises, according to Japanese and Western naval experts. Chinese shipyards are turning out new nuclear and conventional submarines, destroyers, missile-armed patrol boats and surface ships at a higher rate than any other country.
Operating from increasingly modern ports, including a new naval base in the south of Hainan island, its warships are patrolling more regularly, in bigger numbers and further from the mainland in what is the most sweeping shift in Asia's maritime power balance since the demise of the Soviet navy.
China's military diplomacy with Southeast Asia is rapidly evolving as it takes steps to promote what Beijing describes as its "peaceful rise".
The Chinese navy's hospital ship Peace Ark recently treated hundreds of patients on a swing last month through Myanmar, Cambodia and Indonesia - its first such mission across Southeast Asia. Its naval vessels returning from regular international anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden have made calls in Southeast Asian ports, including Singapore and Vietnam.
Still, analysts and diplomats say Beijing has a long way to go to catch up with not just the long-dominant United States, but other regional military powers such as Australia, Japan and Russia.
"China has come late to the party," said Richard Bitzinger, a military analyst at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore, one of Washington's most key allies in the region, said it was disappointing Obama would not be visiting Asia.
"Obviously we prefer a U.S. government which is working to one which is not. And we prefer a U.S. President who is able to travel to fulfill his international duties to one who is preoccupied with his domestic preoccupations," Lee said after arriving in Bali.
"It is a very great disappointment to us President Obama is unable to visit."
U.S. officials dismissed the notion that Obama's no-show would imply any weakening of the U.S. commitment to the region. Just last week, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Secretary of State John Kerry were in South Korea and Japan to reaffirm the U.S. military commitment to the two key allies, and Kerry will fill in for Obama at the two Asian summits.
"The bottom line is that the United States of America is not going to change one iota the fundamental direction of the policy under this president," Kerry said on Saturday.
"I think everybody in the region understands. Everybody sees this (the cancellation of the visit) as a moment in politics - an unfortunate moment - but they see it for what it is."
The United States has ramped up military funding and assistance to its close ally the Philippines, expanded military exercises with other nations and increased regional port visits.
From only 50 ship visits in 2010, nearly 90 ships have visited the Philippines since January this year alone.
Washington has stationed surveillance planes there and promised up to $30 million in support for building and operating coastal radar stations, all aimed at improving its ally's ability to counter China's naval encroachment in the disputed South China Sea that has alarmed several Asian nations.
But talks to establish a framework agreement on a regular rotational U.S. military presence in the Philippines have yet to bear fruit, and are unlikely to have been helped by Obama's cancellation of his planned visit to Manila.
For the Darwin deployment, a U.S. Senate Committee said in April that it would cost $1.6 billion to build lodgings for the Marines, but the Australian government last month called for only a first-stage A$12 million tender to construct new quarters at existing Australian barracks for around 350 marines.
The economic leg of the pivot, negotiations for the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership, has grown to 12 nations. But the complex three-year-old talks, which seek unprecedented access to domestic markets, are facing resistance in many countries and are unlikely to completed soon.
A final deal would have to be approved by the U.S. Congress, raising the prospect of domestic politics again obstructing Asia ties.
"Even if the administration could push through some agreement on the TPP, it's very unlikely there is going to be legislative success getting that through based on the acrimony that exists," said the CSIS's Baker.
"...On the commercial side (of the pivot), there seems to be more rhetoric than action."

http://m.thehimalayantimes.com/fullNews.php?headline=As+Obama%27s+Asia+%26quot%3Bpivot%26quot%3B+falters%26sbquo%3B+China+steps+into+the+gap&NewsID=393156

I don't think the 'anti' is necessary there.

Also, how does one medically test for homosexuality as part of a routine physical?

Do they ask you to turn your head and cough and if you're too busy sucking cock you're gay?

Anyone hear of the kidnapping of the Libyan PM? It was only a matter of time until somewhat reacted to the US seizing the al-Qaeda figure.

Not sure how to feel about this when they're Atletico's shirt sponsor. Though I guess I can't say I'm surprised when they're the "land of fire".

I wonder exactly how he plans on obtaining recompense from the homosexual community.

They sue the tobacco industry not smokers so he should sue God not the homosexual community.

Edited by Davis_Patik: 20/10/2013 12:46:22 PM

Can Australia claim to be a sovereign nation?
Date
October 21, 2013
15 reading nowRead later
Malcolm Fraser
The increasing American attention to the Pacific is bad news for Australians

Anyone who has a sense of pride in Australia as an independent nation, as a nation that can make up its own mind, whose values are worth supporting, should be disheartened.

We have followed the United States into three wars: Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Vietnam and Iraq were costly and tragic failures. Afghanistan is a failure in waiting. US policies have failed in the Middle East. As a consequence, that region is in greater turmoil and America's influence has greatly diminished.

The US is now turning its attention to the western Pacific, the famous ''pivot'', the policy of containment of China. If American policy is no more successful in the western Pacific than it has been in the Middle East, then those of us who live in this part of the world are in for a rough time.

America claims that a growing and more powerful China is being assertive, some even say aggressive. However, that charge could equally be laid at the door of the US.

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Powerful American taskforces, of which we are at times a part, through the deployment of escort vessels with the USS George Washington, parade through the East and South China seas. An American spy ship, the USNS Impeccable, is anchored close to a Chinese submarine base on Hainan Island. The Chinese would certainly have regarded this act as provocative. The build-up of US arms, from Japan to Australia and involving the Philippines and Singapore, and strategic discussions with other nations, many would regard as aggressive, in a region that has had a long period of peace. Certainly, compared with the Middle East, where the US has been most active, the western Pacific has been peaceful indeed, much of that due to the efforts of Indonesia and other ASEAN countries.

The increasing American attention to the Pacific is not good news for Australia. Iraq was far away and did not affect our regional relationships in any significant way. But if present US policies are pursued, there is a possibility of conflict ultimately between China and the US. If we are involved, our relationships with all countries of the region would be affected.

A conflict could be begun by a newly militaristic Japan seeking to change the status of the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands. It could be caused by the Philippines, believing they would have American support and behaving aggressively as a consequence. While the Americans claim not to take sides in disputes in the East and South China seas, their statements, their dispositions and deployments, suggest they have sided with Japan.

These events affect Australia deeply. We have little or no capacity for independent action or decisions. If America is involved in conflict, our hosting a powerful Marine air-ground taskforce in Darwin, capable of deploying power anywhere throughout the region, makes us complicit in whatever that taskforce may do. Australians have been deceived by statements in Australia, belittling the significance of that deployment, but outside Australia, US secretaries of defence have spoken more openly of its capacities.

Perhaps more important, Pine Gap, whose initial purpose was to gather intelligence concerning the performance of Soviet missiles, now provides information, virtually in real time, that can be used by a variety of US weapons systems, including drones. Pine Gap is part of America's drone killing program. If targets are selected anywhere in east Asia or the western Pacific, we are complicit in such actions.

Of greater significance still, Pine Gap information is now used to help target and to perfect America's anti-ballistic missile system. China has 250 nuclear warheads, America has 7700. China, committed to a no-first-use policy from the start, may be concerned about the adequacy of its present programs, because the ABM system being put in place by America and Japan will seriously limit China's deterrent nuclear force. Pine Gap is integral in such developments.

In any conflict in the western Pacific, because of the the Darwin taskforce and Pine Gap, it would be impossible to say that we are not involved. Therefore, if America goes to war in the western Pacific, we also will be at war. Washington will determine whether Australia goes to war or not, just as Britain and the empire did in days of old.

We should be finding ways of asserting Australian sovereignty and establishing strategic independence, as Canada has, for example. It did not participate in Vietnam or in Iraq.

Our situation will be compounded, and America's hold on Australia's future will be made all the stronger, if an option being pushed by American defence analysts is accepted in Australia. America, short of money, is looking for ways to cheapen its deployments in the western Pacific. The suggestion is that 10 or 12 Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines would be run and managed by the Australian navy. While they would be used for Australian purposes, a significant function would be to undertake part of patrolling and operations that America regards as important, in the western Pacific. The same reports suggest that tensions are going to rise throughout the region, and that this is an additional reason why we should accept this option.

If tensions rise, it will be a consequence of America's increased militarisation of the western Pacific.

Many countries in east and south-east Asia have shown a remarkable capacity to overcome old enmities and to work together in peaceful association. The members of ASEAN, without American support, have shown how this can be done effectively in the Asian way. All the countries of this region, not merely Australia, should be concerned with the current posture and activities of the US. We, above all, should be concerned because of the Marine air-ground taskforce and because of the activities of Pine Gap.

We must find a way to reassert our own sovereignty.

Malcolm Fraser was prime minister from 1975 to 1983.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/can-australia-claim-to-be-a-sovereign-nation-20131020-2vusx.html#ixzz2iLefbcpq

Couple beheaded for having 'love affair' in Afghanistan

OCTOBER 24,

A COUPLE have been beheaded for daring to have a love affair outside marriage and bringing shame on their families.

The couple, from Afghanistan's conservative Helmand province, were reportedly kidnapped, beaten and beheaded before their bodies were buried in an unmarked grave.
Police said they believed the couple, who are in their 20s, were killed by family members who were ashamed they had been living together outside marriage.
It is understood a group of 10 men broke into the couple's home on Monday in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah and kidnapped them both.
Police official Mohammad Ismail Hotak said the couple's beheaded bodies were found the next day.
An older brother of the male victim told police the woman had run away with his sibling and had been living in their family home, the Daily Mail reported.
"Local residents reported that there were two bodies in the graveyard. We went there and found them. Both were beheaded," he said.
"From our investigations, we have found that the two had a love affair. We believe the family and relatives of the girl are behind the killing."
Police also said the man had recently said he loved the woman and wanted to marry her.
Couples who live together outside of marriage are frowned upon and are considered shameful in the deeply conservative country still reeling from years of hard line Taliban rule.
Violence against women is also not uncommon in the country with 4000 cases reported from March to October in 2011 alone, according to human rights group Amnesty International.
Crimes against women for supposed adultery charges are not uncommon either.
In July, an Afghan women named as Najiba was shot on charges of adultery, reportedly by a Taliban insurgent.

http://www.news.com.au/world/middle-east/couple-beheaded-for-having-love-affair-in-afghanistan/story-fnh81ifq-1226745906200

Why am I not surprised?

While sex outside of marriage is wrong it does not bring shame on peoples families and it is not something that people should be killed over.

According to whom?

If Hillary Rodham Clinton passes in 2016, which Democrats run? The Fix ranks the tiers.

By Chris Cillizza, Monday, October 28, 3:02 A

Every conversation we have with any Democratic operative about the 2016 presidential race starts this way: “Well, I mean if Hillary runs . . . .” Which, of course, is to be expected. If Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former secretary of state, former New York senator and former 2008 presidential candidate, runs, then the Democratic race (and the general election, too) revolves around her.

But, of late, those conversations have an interesting addendum to them that goes like this: “Of course, if Elizabeth Warren wanted to do it, she’d have a case to make.” Yes, she would. We’ve long believed that the freshman Democratic Massachusetts senator’s combination of hero status among liberals nationally and massive fundraising capacity would make her very formidable if she ran.

Warren has been adamant about her lack of interest in the race. But, things change in politics. Then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama was similarly adamant about his lack of interest in running for president in 2008 — and we know how that turned out.

The simple fact is that Warren’s beloved status among rank-and-file Democrats — and an elite group of very wealthy and very liberal major donors — means that if Clinton didn’t run, Warren would come under a significant amount of pressure to reconsider. And Warren would have a built-in excuse to explain her past comments; “Well I never thought about it seriously because I expected Hillary to run . . . but now that she’s not . . . .”

Because of that upside — with apologies to NBA draft experts — we are moving Warren into our second tier of potential Democratic presidential candidates. Clinton remains as the lone candidate in the first tier — a space she will occupy until she announces whether she is running. Our breakdown of the field is below. The candidates within each tier are listed alphabetically.

Tier One (If she runs, the other tiers don’t matter)

●Hillary Rodham Clinton: Everything we hear privately and everything we see publicly suggests that Clinton is running — or at least allowing those around her to put the pieces in place to be ready if/when she flips the switch. Does that mean she is definitely in? No. But it means that with every passing month, we become more and more convinced that the surprise announcement would be that she’s not running.

Tier Two (If not Hillary, then . . .)

● Joe Biden: Last week, the vice president called state Rep.-elect Brian Meyer (D) to congratulate him on his special-election victory a few days earlier. Why would the VP call a not-even-sworn-in-yet state legislator? Because Meyer is from Iowa. And that tells you everything you need to know about whether Biden is thinking about running for president in 2016.

● Andrew Cuomo: Unlike some of the other people on this list — Martin O’Malley, we are looking at you — the New York governor is doing the do-as-little-as-possible-to-stoke-2016-speculation thing. (That may or may not be a thing.) Cuomo, the scion of a famous political family, knows that in a field without Clinton, he is a heavyweight given his name, fundraising abilities and résumé as governor of one of the most Democratic states in the country.

● Martin O’Malley: The governor of Maryland is, without question, the candidate most open about his interest in running for president. “By the end of this year, I think we’re on course to have a body of work that lays the framework for a candidacy in 2016,” O’Malley told reporters in August. His travel schedule is heavy on trips to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, and O’Malley used his time as chairman of the Democratic Governors Association to build out his national fundraising network.

●Elizabeth Warren: See above. There’s no one not named Clinton on this list who combines the star power and fundraising potential that Warren boasts. And, Warren has one thing that even Clinton doesn’t: a rabid following within the liberal base of the party.

Tier Three (There’s a will and a way — sort of)

● Kirsten Gillibrand: Gillibrand is a sneaky-good politician. Without all that much fanfare, she has turned herself into a liberal champion. She’s also someone who has proved that she knows how to raise money; she took in $30 million between her 2010 and 2012 Senate campaigns.

Tier Four (There’s a will but — probably — not a way)

●Howard Dean: Dean clearly looks back on his one-time front-running 2004 presidential campaign wistfully and wonders if he could catch lightning in a bottle again. The answer is almost certainly “no,” but Dean, never someone who cared much about the party establishment’s opinion of him, might be the sort of person who would be willing to wage a campaign against Clinton from the ideological left.

●Amy Klobuchar: The field above her is too crowded for the Minnesota senator to take a flier on a presidential bid. But, she has the résumé and the ambition to surprise people if things broke just right.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/if-hillary-passes-in-2016-which-democrats-run-the-fix-ranks-the-tiers/2013/10/27/8ab25b04-3f17-11e3-9c8b-e8deeb3c755b_story.html?hpid=z1

It'd be pretty surprising if Clinton didn't run.

Isn't her health not too flash at the moment? But yeah, as it is right now she is clearly the front runner to be the Democratic nominee, and really to be the next President. The biggest issue to think about now though is whether or not the Republicans have gerrymandered enough districts to retain control of the House...fingers crossed that is not the case.

After Clinton their next best option is Joe Biden which is like switching from a Porsche to a Toyota Corolla.

I wrote the post.

Davis_Patik, moral arbiter.

Live on tv LAX air port being evacuated.

Some kind of shooting.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/lax-worker-killed-as-gunman-opens-fire-in-los-angeles-airport-terminal/story-e6frg6so-1226751727183

Another shooting involving an assault rifle. How many more deaths will it take before the Americans legislate?

Muh freedom
Muh second amendment

The Brits might attack again though guys.

All of the above sound like realistic things the Yanks would say

Why?

But lukerbinho reckons we too should have guns.

-PB

Exactly, they make it so easy a little child can kill another child with a gun. There is absolutely no reason for guns to exist.