Your Say gives readers a chance to tell Crikey what they think about the stories we’ve published. Today topics range from are we being watched to watching Nancy Pelosi poke the Chinese bear. And plenty more.
On the attack on Salman Rushdie
Oliver Mayo writes: Whatever one thinks about the attack on Rushdie, Guy Rundle’s cheap sneer — “Salman Rushdie, cruising out his senior years on the talk circuit, decades after being an actual novelist, wasn’t a victim of the attack on free thought” — demands a comment.
Rushdie published his first novel in 1975, his most recent, his 12th, in 2019. The Satanic Verses was his fourth, and came out in 1988. If his health permits, Rushdie’s next novel would keep up the average four-year inter-novel interval if it came out in two to five years. (He has of course written many more books; I’m only referring to his novels.) Rushdie is still a novelist whose silencing would be an attack on free thought and free speech as well as the outcome of a vile assault on an elderly human.
On surveillance culture at Bakers Delight
Jenny Thomas writes: My first response was to sympathise with Guy Rundle’s position: posting signs to govern our moral behaviour is a trivial but nonetheless significant concern if it becomes a part of the social wallpaper, as he notes. And then I remembered how feminism in the ’60s was demonised for being concerned about the day-to-day trivialities of misogyny, the patronising of women, the jokes, the way language put women down, the wolf-whistling, the daily humiliations, the permissions that were required … When we complained we were told this is trivial. You have no sense of humour. Only ugly women are feminists. We open doors for you, don’t we? We educate you. You have the vote, don’t you? And then there were the day-to-day trivialities of unwelcome sexual approaches and sexual commentary in the workplace, in the streets, on public transport.
What they mask is not trivial: the widespread need of men for power over women. Of course you don’t deal with this with signs. They won’t change a thing. They are wallpaper. It is a nonsense solution to an intractable problem. But it would be nice if Rundle made a nod towards the difficulty of the problem it is attempting to solve. The only thing that will change men’s attitudes to women is if other men tell them to stop behaving like shits.
Peter Morgan writes: That’s it, it’s BS and I won’t shop there anymore.
Andrew O’Brien writes: Yes I do consider these signs a blight on society. Would it consider signs for other offensive and illegal behaviour such as peeing in the corner, taking bread without paying or not wearing clothes into the shop? Of course it wouldn’t. (Well I hope it wouldn’t.) Should we ask that if there’s no sign saying don’t do it then it’s OK?
Debra Wallis writes: What a thought-provoking piece. You’re right, though. We’re all doomed to another layer of business bureaucracy that now has to be built into the management structure of micro industry, costing operators more, yet them being unable to explain another price rise for their latte. In the same way that the big supermarkets are working their way through our grocery shopping lists — crippling small competitors that have previously kept them at least on par, if not honest — Labor is again belting the little guys while parading a near-lost figment of the collective imagination that it is “for” the working class.
Peter Shaw writes: Of course they are a blight on society; more than a blight, they are a scourge and a canker. However, this isn’t a new blight — it’s just the latest iteration of one first seen in the ’90s. When I caught a train more than 20 years ago in a visit to a capital city I was disappointed but not surprised by the sight of a string of “ghostbuster” signs in the carriage. I was an adult being reminded about “not” activities that included smoking, eating, drinking, talking too loudly on your phone, riding your pushbike in the aisle etc. All reasonable and surely internalised rules while travelling on public transport for a thoughtful, socially aware human sharing space with others. Surely if we must have a sign, then just the one that reminds us to treat each other with respect while commuting is enough in a “post-moral” world.
This is actually one of the first incursions into “our demoralisation”. Bakers Delight has just upped the ante. Trouble is, in some places like Parliament House in Canberra and the UN in New York we’ll need much more than a ghostbuster sign to improve morality.
On a ‘gas-led recovery’
Dr Graeme McLeay writes: Bernard Keane has belled the cat here, because a gas-led recovery is a logical absurdity. Where is gas leading us? After droughts, bushfires, floods and heatwaves, we know that gas, oil, and coal are pushing us to the brink of irreversible climate change and ecocide. The emissions from the processing alone of fossil gas will be enough to blow past the government’s weak 43% target, and fugitive emissions add to the problem. The gas lobby APPEA [the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association] made the extraordinary claim that the industry brings billions in revenue to Australia. Nothing could be further from the truth, but these sorts of claims go largely unchallenged.
David Bell writes: The ALP policy is no different from its predecessor in government. I didn’t expect it would be. It is a neo-liberal party of the right as Adam Bandt correctly observed at his Press Club address. We will need a concerted mass campaign to force this alternative Liberal Party to properly represent the wishes and needs of the Australian people. The ALP is our new enemy now that the Coalition has been consigned to the dustbin of history.
Peter Anich writes: I am a greenie. Unlike some of our green (?) politicians, I have an electric scooter, roof solar, solar hot water, electric bicycle, roof insulation, am anti-waste, and always live close to work. Most carbon capture sounds like a furphy, but for as long as coal power exists we need to minimise its effects. It is scientifically proved that Indonesian brown coal has more impurities and pollutants per tonne than Australian black coal, and that these impurities mean more brown coal needs to be burnt to get the same amount of energy. So more pollutants per tonne and more tonnes required to be burnt equals a large-scale increase in pollutants and global warming. This is easy maths.
The unintended — or intended — deception are Keane’s words: “somehow, miraculously, ‘cleaner’ than filthy foreigners’ coal”. I recommend you promote effective solutions rather than bag things like clean coal and gas. I also think storage is the choke point at present, not the grid. If we maximise storage at the power stations and the homes, most of the grid is already sufficiently in place.
On Nancy Pelosi in Taipei
Frank Ward writes: I find it remarkable that the world was almost pushed into a global war because an 82-year-old politician wanted to make her mark in history as she approaches the end of her political life when the Democrats lose control of the House at the midterm elections in November. US President Biden showed weak leadership on this. Australia’s future is in the hands of an America that is rapidly turning into a right-wing totalitarian society without tolerance.
On a fading Coalition
Dr Paul Recher writes: The Coalition has dealt itself out of the hand for a long time. The outstanding question of today is when will Labor have to go into coalition — and will it be with the Greens or the teals?
If something in Crikey has pleased, annoyed or inspired you, let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
Frank Ward: In your opinion are Pelosi’s actions more or less irresponsible than her visit to Tiananmen Square in 1991, two years after the start of her political career, where she honoured the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre? On this front at least, she has been much more consistent than many politicians in the stance she takes, but if, as you point out, she only did it “to make her mark in history as she approaches the end of her political life”, I guess she must have thought her political career was going to end with the 1992 election.