Letters to the editor

Fiona Capp’s essay on Judith Wright and Nugget Coombs (“In the Garden”, June 2009) is perhaps the most moving love story that I have ever read. Seventy-four years old myself, and with a wife of a similar age, I cannot but think how wonderful it would be for one of our sons to say, on finding us missing one fine morning: “The buggers. They’ve gone and done it.”

Congratulations to Waleed Aly for his insightful article on the role and nature of US patriotism (“Patriot Acts”, June 2009). His observations about Australia resonated strongly with me, for even as a fifth generation Australian, I often feel I like don’t belong here because of the narrowness of the definition of ‘Australianness’.

The US has a unique flag; ours is a flag within a flag, symbolising our British past, and it has become a symbol of the non-inclusivity of our nation.

The US has an American head of state; we have a British head of state. An American president is not really comparable with an Australian prime minister for this very reason: one is a head of state and the other is simply a head of government – very different symbolism.

Our national day is a celebration of colonial foundation, and we wonder why it doesn’t resonate with many citizens!

There is so much that is good about Australia, and much of it derived from our British rule of law and Westminster system of government. But until we have a new flag, an inclusive republican constitution and a new, inclusive Australia Day, we will not shake off the neo-colonial hangover that is hampering so many Australians’ sense of belonging.

I just read John Birmingham’s story (“The Coming Storm”, June 2009) and, um, is it a satirical piece? Surely it must be, for according to the author, a notable effect of the current recession is that residents of Balmain and thereabouts are being forced to eat apples instead of raspberries, and some are even – wait for it – having to dip into their savings.

My God, if that’s Balmain, I wonder how people on the North Shore are holding up? Some of them might even be dining in from time to time.

Moreover, most of the author’s research appears to have been done online. This seems like pretty lazy journalism to me. I like to think The Monthly is a bit more real; that the magazine’s writers do their research out in the real world. Funny, though – I think. It is satire, right?

By the way, single parents with no savings also read The Monthly – I can vouch for that.

Re: “Endnotes” by Gail Bell (April, 2009).

There are thousands of patients in nursing homes with no quality of life lingering on indefinitely awaiting the blessing of death to release them from their despair. If ever I am unfortunate enough to be placed in the same situation, I hope there is a sympathetic doctor around to end my life in a dignified and peaceful manner.

If I could afford the trip I would travel to Mexico and get some Nembutal just in case of need.

I am an 83-year-old World War II veteran and it would give me great peace of mind if I could get medical assistance to die in a dignified manner if I should lose quality of life. It is my firm opinion that enforced prolonged life when quality of life is lost is a fate worse than death; I fear degeneration far more than I fear death. It is inhumane to leave those who have lost quality of life, whether it be a terminal illness or deterioration that leaves them confined to a nursing home, suffering from dementia, incontinence, and/or Alzheimer’s.

As Nembutal is unavailable I would strongly recommend that everyone prepare an Advance Directive and appoint an Enduring Guardian, so that he/she has the authority to liaise with the doctor in the preparation of a health-care management plan when quality of life is lost. The health-care management plan should provide that you not be subjected to any medical intervention or treatment aimed at prolonging life, and that any distressing symptoms (including any caused by lack of food or fluid) are fully controlled by appropriate analgesic or other treatment, even though this may shorten life. For those wishing to avoid prolonged confinement in a nursing home and distress to loved ones, I would strongly recommend that they take this action whilst they are still of sound mind.

Should we regard your symposium (“The Rudd Essay & the Financial Crisis”, May 2009) responding to the Rudd essay, commencing with Eric Hobsbawm, as a sign of the times? That the comments of this treasonous propagandist from the 1930s should be considered relevant to this debate is telling. “Unquestionably the most formidable interpreter of the patterns of world history” indeed. At least we can take some comfort that in this current crisis the old boy has little to suggest as to where to go from here; we will have to wait for yet another of his perverse interpretations ex post facto. Alas, Prime Minister Rudd and some of his international counterparts have much to suggest, solutions consistent with the inferred “times” above. Depressingly though, in this gathering storm I see no leaders, Churchillian or otherwise, emerging to debunk the current (and original) incarnations of Eric Hobsbawm.

Kevin Rudd and Robert Manne in their previous essays (Rudd: “The Global Financial Crisis”, February 2009; Manne: “Neo-liberal Meltdown”, March 2009) and now five contributors to the symposium commenting on these essays (“The Rudd Essay & the Financial Crisis”, May 2009), all indict those responsible for the global financial crisis, but under various undefined and therefore imprecise labels. There is however a precise label, rent seeking (the appropriation of unearned surplus), that is uniquely appropriate here, and it is central to the theory of market failure. Not surprisingly therefore, those responsible for the crisis had adopted the neoclassical economic model precisely because it excluded the possibility of market failure. Even more cynically, they did invoke government interventions but, as Dean Baker points out, “always when income is thereby redistributed upwards”. Only David Hale and Dean Baker place land-value speculation at the front of the chain leading to the crisis.

For David Hale, Kevin Rudd had neglected to mention that “the downturn resulted from the collapse of the residential real-estate market in the US” and that it was Congress that essentially promoted the sub-prime boom.

For Dean Baker, Kevin Rudd had underestimated the role of the real-estate bubble in causing the meltdown. Yet “there was overwhelming evidence that the economy was being driven by a gigantic asset bubble” that created “US$8 trillion in housing-bubble wealth.”

I have read with great interest the symposium on the prime minister’s essay and the global financial crisis (“The Rudd Essay & the Financial Crisis”, May 2009), as well as the Comment in the same issue by Flannery and Rowley. While many interesting points were made, I have found the series highly disappointing from such learned authors. For example, of course, Morris is right when he stresses that macroeconomics is not a science. We have known this for decades. Economics is structured as a religion and founded on myths. However, this very acknowledgement calls for much deeper critiques than any of those offered by these authors. This crisis is clearly unprecedented. Rigorous critical thinking requires that one would not only issue the usual critiques from each party’s standpoint and ideological make-up but also question in depth those very standpoints and ideologies. What is new in this crisis that is not dealt with by any of the traditional standpoints?

I am so grateful for Inga Clendinnen’s fulsome article “The Good Soldier” (April, 2009) on WEH Stanner and An Appreciation of Difference. It captured my interest and imagination. When I went to find the book, the assistant asked me if I wanted An Appreciation … or a collection of Stanner’s own essays. I took both. I started with his essays, and I fell in love: what graceful phrases, acute observations, elegant language and challenging vocabulary. His viewpoints, wisdom and understanding were so far ahead of his time!

 I am finally dipping into An Appreciation … – surely it will take more than a month of reading? As a relative newcomer to Australia and a keen student of many aspects of this great country, I am deeply appreciative for the introduction to such a remarkable man.

In some ways I enjoyed Prime Minister Rudd’s essay “The Global Financial Crisis”(February 2009). National leaders should be encouraged to write. Unfortunately, like a blinkered juror in a murder trial, Rudd had all the facts before him but sent the wrong men to jail. Squeezing the facts to fit his political thesis was masterful but mistaken. The current crisis is in financial markets, yet Rudd fails to address the relevant market. His essay strolls quite confidently through economic history but it displays the market understanding of a man with a degree in medieval Chinese poetry.

Rudd’s main contentions are that the global financial crisis (GFC) can be attributed to the neo-liberal deregulation mania of George W Bush’s Republican government, and that conservative politics everywhere is tainted by rampant free-market ideology.

In fact, it was the collapse of the over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market that destroyed bank capital and locked up the world’s credit. And it is Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, and Robert Rubin, the Treasury secretary under Clinton, who bear prime responsibility.

These men failed – despite repeated warnings – to regulate the OTC derivatives market. Indeed, not only did they fail to actively regulate this market, they adamantly opposed regulation and fostered legislation designed to enshrine unregulated status.

Alan Greenspan has admitted his error. We have his confession. What more does Rudd require?

Hugh White’s review of David Kilcullen’s The Accidental Guerrilla (“Turning a Mouse into an Elephant”, May 2009) ends with a comment on the author’s character: “David Kilcullen seems to find something a little intoxicating about the image of the soldier–scholar out among the world’s wild peoples, leading them to serve his own country’s interests … to write ‘my will across the sky in stars,’ as Lawrence said.” White’s point is reinforced by the full-page picture that accompanies the article: Peter O’Toole in front of a sketch of Lawrence in Arab headdress. Yet there is nothing in Kilcullen’s book that suggests a scholarly egomaniac writing his will among the world’s wild peoples and subordinating them to the United States’ will. Instead, there is much that expresses respect and humane concern for the wellbeing of the Iraqis, Afghans and other peoples whose lives have been damaged by the conflict.