Well not exactly. Beazley got a run in an E.J. Dionne WaPo op-ed article titled, "First Step? Admit There's a Problem" [reg req]. Neither American Republicans or Democrats have any plan for what to do in Iraq. Clarkes op-ed on the same page, on the same subject, basically says Bush has no plan . Clark then manages to not offer one in return.

Beazley reckons;

Beazley proposed the redeployment of American forces to Iraq's borders with Syria and Iran on the road to departure. At the same time, Washington needs to "refocus attention on Afghanistan," particularly the border areas with Pakistan, where he sees the real war on terrorism being waged. And the United States must turn its attention to the Iraq war's perverse effect, which has been to "advance Iranian power."

So where I differ with Beazley is that he thinks the US forces should take over the Afghan border, I reckon the Australian forces should ;

But equally influential on our policy toward Afghanistan has been the weak manner in which Australia has contributed. We are not in control of the outcome, and consequentially the Howard government is just floating along with no focus, and no possible means to take the expeditions in Afghanistan and Iraq to any conclusion. Australia needs to return to the policy of December 2001, pull out of Iraq, and focus its full energies on defeating Al Queda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Note to John Howard and Kim Beazley, my skills in defence policy are always on the market.

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John Singleton made a Fabian Society speech on Labor's chances of winning in 2007. Unfortunately the speech is not online, so I cannot read it directly, instead I am reduced to quoting Alan Ramsey in an smh op-ed. In the speech Singleton argued that Beazley was another "lazarus on a triple bypass", he should have just done away with the pretence, and called our political system a waitocracy.

From the op-ed;

Labor was so "poll driven" now it "astonishes" him. He'd thought Mark Latham, whom he'd met only once, was a "fantastic oppurtunity" but now "we're returning to Lazarus with a triple bypass". - Howard's put down of himself in 1989 - "only now Lazarus is Kim Beazley".

So where have we heard that before? From SSR ;

John Howard and Kim Beazley are the same politician. They are both products of the Australian waitocracy. Howard has been remarked upon as lazarus with a triple bypass because he survived several leadership changes before becoming Prime Minister. ... Both pursue small target political campaigns.

Road to Surfdom also linked to the article, and Gary and I discussed it at length on his philosophy website. From that discussion I wrote;

I think they are wrong, it [the opposition needing a visionary and charismatic leader] makes for good journalism, but is meaningless when compared against our political and media system. Party legitimacy, discipline and authority comes with winning elections. The party can be a bunch of no-hopers with no political vision, in fact this was true of Howard and Beazley both using "small target" strategies to try and win government. It worked for Howard, and nearly did for Beazley with only Tampa and 911 scuttling it.

It is a waitocracy, you dont need vision, or a compelling leader, you just got to hang around until you get a go, and then once you are PM, the media loves you and claims you are a "leader". The party likes power, and having the taxpayer's purse, so they fall in line with the leader. Legislation, the treasury and smacking down the media are then all used to ensure the party remains in power.

This vision and leader celebrity form of political journalism doesnt mean much. If Labor follow the Keating style of political management without his arrogance they will be fine. Howard has expanded government to an unhealthy point. If they shrink government, as they did under Hawke and Keating, then Labor will be fine. They can wedge away to their heart is content, and claim Simpson and the Donkey for Labor.

We will then see the same cycle in the Liberal Party as we did between 1983 and 1996. A constant changing of leaders as the Liberal get subject to celebrity political journalism. The same journalistic hubris of the right being in disarray and Labor being the "natural party of government".

I am sure that Singleton has a speech writer who is probably pretty smart, but we saw the Lazarus with a triple bypass analogy for Beazley in ozplogistan first.

I for one welcome our new speechwriter blog reading overlords. They may as well dig through our ideas and commentary more, because we do it better than mass media does; and ever has done.

We now have tags , thanks to the work of rusty, hillct and janra. They are a kind of meta-information cloud, similar to what technorati has . So next time an SSR member writes an Article or a Rafferty entry, put some tags in it as well.

You might also recognize tags from that big scoop site, dailykos . I don't have the Blocks/CSS set up to display in technorati style yet, but once we get enough tags for it to be a soup or a cloud, then I will.

A list of tags also appear at the bottom of the story. These have to be entered at the time the Article or Rafferty's is written. There is a tag field under the story body field. Enter in the tags in comma delimited fashion. For instance to add Tags for 'South Sea Republic','Tags' and 'Scoop' type in;

South Sea Republic, Tags, Scoop

In other site news I got the incoming trackbacks working again. That functionality got lost with the sync/upgrade with scoop CVS. Note to hulver, please be checking in the radio button rating and trackback code to the scoop main trunk. At the moment I am maintaining a bastardised half-version of CVS scoop and hulver-scoop.

While I am in site maintenance mode, if anyone else has any gripes, improvements or suggestions - fire away - and I will see what I can do.

South Sea Republic has gone through several visual changes in its layout and site design since its inception.

South Sea Republic has had several different looks in its lifetime up to this point. The original design was the three column, tables based layout.

This was replaced by the short-lived "white" design.

South Sea Republic also spun off Newcopia , an attempt to wrap the parliamentary library research and ABC News feeds with comments. It was an article by Avocadia, called "Bottom-up User Communities" which prompted Newcopia. This led to Newcopia being set up over a weekend. This is the article announcing the site going live .

Another short-lived design which did not last past a day was this one. Between scoop not making itself easily amenable to certain layouts and usability issues this design did not persist. One of the benefits from it was that shading was added to the rafferty's and comments boxes.

Hardt and Negri on Liberalism;

The arguments of Madison, who thought representation the key to breaking apart any monarchy of power, now seem merely like mystifications; Montesquieu, who advocated radical division of constitutional powers, has been silenced by the unity of the system; and Jeffersonian free expression has been monopolized by corporate media. The political lexicon of modern liberalism is a cold bloodless cadaver.

They continue;

Liberalism never really even pretended to represent all of society - the poor, women, racial minorities, and the rest of the subordinated majority have always been excluded from power by explicit or implicit constitutional mechanisms.

Today liberalism tends not even to be able adequately to represent the elites. In the era of globalization it is becoming increasingly clear that the historical moment of liberalism has passed.

Big statements.

Is representation purely liberal? It was a democratic advance for its time that connected the increasing equity of social and technological organisation.

On South Sea Republic we are constantly discussing post-representative forms of governance such as ratification and sortition . These technologies were not unknown at the time of the American revolution. Juries are an essential part of American Constitutional rights.

Juries are used to ensure that an individual is judged by the peers under the technical guidance of a specialist, ie a Judge. This was deemed the most efficient, and just form of judicial organisation.

There is no reason why modern liberalism cannot adjust those same principles to Executive and Legislative government. A Harpurian Republic reflects the most advanced form of social organisation that capable at the time.

Madison's beliefs on representation have been overtaken by advances in education, technology, health and enfranchisement. They have also been undercut by political organisation which seeks to increase the alienation and abstraction between representative and voter. Gerry-mandering is one such technique.

Our recent discussion on appointed or elected Ministers raised the issue of division of constitutional powers. The consensus was that factionalism has combined to make the government run pay party than by division of powers. Yet, many parliamentary systems, including Australia's, are specifically set up this way.

Australian government has no real recognition of division between executive and legislative responsibilities. Unicameral systems such as Queensland's and the ACT's have even less recognition of that separation.

Queensland's upper house was suicide squadded by Labor members, but the ACT and Northern Territory systems were created when people were more sensitive to separation of powers. Parliamentary systems are specifically set-up to ensure there is as little conflict between Executive and Legislative as possible.

Is that a failing of Liberalism? I think it is rough to throw that in its lap.

As to the corporate media being monopolised to such an extent that it is a statist mouthpiece, this is nothing new, and something that individuals have chafed under, even back in Jefferson's time. Jefferson himself, was an extraordinary muck-raker who would happily co-ordinate attacks on his opponents through the publishing media of the time.

But is the political lexicon of modern liberalism limited to representation, separation of powers and a free mass media?

It can be argued, rightly in my opinion, that sites like South Sea Republic represent modern liberalism as much as any other; and innovations such as sortition, independent constitutional review, abundant media, technology, etc are all part of the common lexicon on this site.

The American Republic had to update the responses in political science and philosophy to eradicate the ills they saw that damaged liberty and democracy. Republicanism is not static, nor is it conservative. It is an expression of the maximal political innovation and achievement of the time.

Today our list of ills is larger than in 1787 or 1901. The lexicon advances to innovations and technologies that can eradicate the attacks on liberty, democracy and justice.

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