Yuletide BBQ
Because Australia is an Anglo country, Christmas is traditionally celebrated with all the appurtenances of the northern hemisphere, from reindeer and Santa’s sleigh (sometimes modified as a “rusty Holden ute”) to fir trees bedecked with baubles and tinsel. It looks, to use the vernacular, naf. Sure, red and green are pretty, but the bearded gent in the fur suit is ludicrous in the context of sun and surf, prawns on ice and a coldie. Sure, it got cold back in the Mediterranean Promised Land – a desert country, by-and-large, not unlike here in the antipodes – but the snowy scenes depicted on greeting cards have no more basis in reality than the jolly old elf delivering presents or coal according to a fixed standard of behavior amongst the kiddies. The fairy lights strung up around town twinkle brightly, but we’re in daylight savings mode for the duration, and the sun stays up well past shopping hours, limiting the effect and leaving little enough benefit for anyone left in town. A little cloud-cover this year doesn’t change the situation overall: it’s time to rethink Christmas decorations, not to mention time to stop bagging each other over who’s a better Christian; see previous post. (Travelling along Broadway last night past the Legion of Mary, M. & I spotted their storefront display: a table-top sized nativity scene, with a full-sized Santa kneeling before it amid clouds and clots of cotton snow. Yikes.) Perhaps we can review what Christmas is all about: the promise of redemption, the love of families, peace on earth and goodwill to all, God rest ye merry gentlemen. I couldn’t care less if December 25 was co-opted from pagan winter solstice celebrations; it’s too late now.

The star of Bethlehem makes a nice symbol, and there are certainly plenty of shepherds around so we can leave in the wool, although I don’t recommend wearing it. Angels, sure, if you want ‘em, but Santa’s just silly, as are the Frosty snowmen and other such non-tropical winter representations: scrap ‘em, and head down to Bondi, Manly, Coogee, Maroubra, wherever, and have a open-to-all-comers game of beach volleyball. Everybody can BYO beverages and comestibles, too, and share-and-share alike. Hanukkah is over already, but the festival of lights says a lot about faith and is otherwise seasonal, so let’s have some menorahs and Davidic stars. Tinsel, however, is a hazard. The bright sun reflects off the stuff to sharply, and we’ll all be driving or walking into light poles in broad day, blinded by the glare. Some nice colorful bunting would work just fine. But don’t talk to me about Kwanza – for all the African population around, it’s a made-up-in-America secular event that has no place or purpose here. For M. and I, the day will be spent quietly at home, perhaps a visit out among the rellies in Manly or Lilyfield and the now-traditional calls overseas. We might dress up the cat with a pretty bow.

Tax Bonanza
Revenues to the federal government here have resulted in a AU$6 billion surplus. Already reneging on portions of AU$9 billion in election promises, the Howard government has turned around to hand out AU$11 billion to big business in tax breaks, grants, and tariffs. And the economy? Be warned; oh, and Merry Christmas.

The Expatriate Community
Somebody's going to be in trouble.

Gregory Altreuter -- Internationally Published Poet
Hello. Guest poster M here. Greg recently got in big trouble from a certain member of our American family for not annoucing to the world my recent, humble, achievements. So for fear of risking getting in trouble myself I hereby annouce the publication of one of Greg's poems in a none too shabby bi-annual called Blue Dog, put out by Poetry Australia Foundation. It's an excellent poem called "Grass," and the issue has just hit the bookshelves. We're waiting for a copy in the mail, but I may try to get copies to a select few of his dedicated readers. You know who you are.

Bridges, Tunnels, & Crowds
Remember when the Williamsburg bridge was falling down? No, well, you may not have cared; God knows NYC didn’t show much concern until it really was nearly too late. Now, however, after years and years of work, endless paint scraping, concerns over airborn lead particles, well, it’s still not exactly repaired, but at least they’re working on it. Turns out – as if we didn’t already know it – the subways need work, too. Governments hate spending money, don’t they? There are those who will say it’s because too much is spent on foreign aid or on homelessness programs, and the proper role of government is to build roads, if only those damn lefties would let them, but that’s not really the problem, is it? Be honest, now, because you know the problem is inefficiency and inappropriate priorities. Where is the money really being spent, when, and how? Endless dollars are poured into missile-defense systems that don’t work and studies on how to improve financial management within the various levels of government (let alone studies on what we’re going to do about the trains). Plus, like everywhere else, once the money gets down to the grass-roots levels, there’s also considerable waste and corruption. Why don’t the trains run properly in Sydney? Because the government is spending the money elsewhere, on new highway ring-roads and tunnels, for example. Traffic is miserable, but building more roads doesn’t reduce the problem; it exacerbates it. Why are the subways of NYC in such poor shape? Because when the MTA had the money, they gave themselves bonuses and salary increases instead of putting in the time and effort to upgrade their equipment. (Yes, there are other reasons, important ones, but this isn’t an essay on those details.) Businesses used to run on the principle that when times were flush, you put the excess back into the company, improving capacity so that outside forces would have less effect on performance in the future, instead of spending it on executive stock options and lavish holiday parties. Governments ought to do the same thing (although I hate to use the business=government equation: that’s what got George II into office, and it isn’t true anyway, not in anything other than a metaphorical sense). Who pays for all this? The poor and the middle class, of course. What can we do about it? Well, we don’t have to sit there and take it. We can make our displeasure known, demand the quality we ought to be receiving, and withhold our support wherever we can until we get it. Vote your interests, first of all, not just your fear of interest rates, and then start writing and calling and making yourself heard: public services serve the public. CityRail could have kept the Olympics-level service going; and the MTA could have quieter, more reliable trains running through solid tunnels with up-to-date signalling, switching, and tracking equipment, if we’d been making a point of it before it got to be too late.

Prostitution
Now that I’ve signed up to display Google ads, it’s nice to know they’re legal.

Re-Legitimizing Peace
Mahmoud Abbas’ call to an end to the use of arms is cautiously worded, but a positive impulse towards peace. It remains to be seen whether he can carry the Palestinian Authority into being the political body the citizenry need, or whether Hamas and the other terrorist organizations will continue their hold on the hearts and minds. The PA never spent the time and money under Arafat on the social welfare programs that would have legitimized them, while Hamas et al. were setting up soup kitchens and re-homing the dispossessed concurrently with their recruitment drives and arming of beleaguered, disaffected people. If Abbas can turn this situation around, he’ll prove himself the Palestinian who deserved a Nobel Prize, as his predecessor never did.

It’s Always Mom’s Fault
I wondered how long it would take before the mealy-mouthed Miranda Devine blamed working mothers: 7 paragraphs; and another 7 until she blames feminism. Of course, as a columnist, she doesn’t have to go into the office, so she can be a stay-at-home and a working mother all at once. Very clever.

Zip Janet Albrechtsen’s Job Anywhere But Here
Or zip her lip, anyway. Talk about a “grinch.” Janet Albrechtsen advocates off-shoring jobs because that’s teaching Third World countries to fish, whereas governments supplying foreign aid is just feeding them for a day. Is it hypocritical of me to worry that my job will be moved to Bangalore and I’ll be here on the dole? Not really, not when you consider what foreign aid really buys. Countries with foreign aid budgets spend their money by funding projects and economic reforms in the Third World, not by handing out cash on Calcutta or Nairobi street corners to individual passers-by, and not just in food or humanitarian aid. Her “Struggletown vs. Wealthtown” comparison is fatuous and insulting to everyone, not just simplistic and inaccurate. If she’s serious, she can start with her own damn job.

E=MC2
The Sydney Commuter explains the physics of CityRail: remember, time is relative, so when the display says the next departing train is due in 2 minutes, what they're really saying is: E(lectronic indicator) = M(aybe) C(oming) [in] 2 [minutes]. Never more true than when you're depending on catching a particular train. I figure that CityRail operations are also the proof of string theory, because they operate on a [shoe]string. I crack myself up.

Wrapped in the Flag
The holiday season is so much fun. Fresh from battling chicko-shops over nativity scenes, the reactionary forces of right-wing political correctness are raising a hue and cry over Sydney’s New Year’s Eve celebrations. Plans for the annual sound-and-light display now include a giant disco ball hanging from the Harbour Bridge and a disco remix of the national anthem. Sounds like a party.

It’s amazing to me to have been here for two years now and to have heard consistently throughout that period Australian consternation over American patriotic displays only to now encounter the same behavior. “You Americans,” I’ve been told, “always hanging out your flag”; “the national anthem is played at every sporting event? How strange” “Children recite the Pledge of Allegiance?” Yeah, it’s true, although they don’t have to say “under God” if they don’t want to. Yes, there’s Flag Day. Yes, we sing the anthem, if we know the words, before each baseball-football-basketball-etc. game, off-key, too. Now somebody wants to put a beat on Advance Australia Fair (is there a comma in there somewhere?) and look what happens.

I like Australia’s low-key patriotism. We go a bit over the top in the States sometimes (especially when the Bushes and Reagans start up about Constitutional Amendments to protect the flag). I like Australia’s sense of humor, too; a dry, satirical wit, often enough, when it isn’t boldly scatological. So what’s happened? Where’s all this coming from? Perhaps it’s all just a beat-up from the talk-radio morons. But what a noise.

Most likely, this is all Clover Moore’s fault. Yes, the new Lord Mayor of Sydney – suddenly everyone’s discovered that their distrust of government put in office someone who isn’t going to just give them business-as-usual. She looks different, acts different, so everything she does is wrong. These are the people who put John Howard back into office for his “historic” fourth term, and with Bob Carr under siege, Labor’s days now appear numbered in NSW and the city. Especially if the crowd down at the Opera House don’t Hustle on 31 December.

All Over But the Shouting
Oracle is buying out PeopleSoft for $26.50 per share. I think I missed the part where the “poison pill” kicks in having been eliminated. Oracle is now the biggest of the ERP vendors, and until Microsoft buys out SAP, they also look to be, effectively, the only game in town. SAP is notoriously hard to implement, for all that it’s also supposed to be a superior product to Oracle once it’s in place. Having used neither, I can’t comment beyond the gossip, but I have used PeopleSoft, and it’s a pretty nice relational database product, one likely only to enhance Oracle’s own software line. This does leave me in a bit of a nervous disposition, however, as it bodes for the elimination of one of the key products I’ve hung my professional life on. As much as I’d like to believe the PeopleSoft line will continue, and itself be enhanced by integration with Oracle’s database platform technology, it seems much more likely to be fully subsumed before long. And the army of consultants and developers in Pleasanton, California, and around the world? My marketplace just got a lot more competitive for the next couple of years.

Responsibility and Consumerism
Most businesses making campaign donations do so pretty much equally between Democrats and Republicans. Others are more partisan. Buy Blue can help you direct your consumer impulses into socially-directed purchases. Why buy from a company which will only use the money to promote a social agenda you don’t share? Instead, the Blue Christmas list will help you select retailers and so forth who put their money into the system more in line with your own preferences. Amazon, for example, put 61% of its donations into GOP coffers, while Barnes & Noble gave 98% of theirs to the Democrats. (And Borders went them 2% better, with 100% of their money going to the DNC.) You don’t even have to mount an actual boycott, well, unless you want to fly somewhere not serviced by JetBlue, or can’t gas up at Phoenix Oil & Gas service stations. Nothing’s foolproof.

Weekend Wrap-Up
While M. was away at a seminar learning many new and useful things about this-and-that, I contented myself over the course of Saturday and Sunday with the usual chores and listening to some recordings I haven't put on to play in a longish time, such as London Calling, by the Clash, which album has had its 25th anniversary the other day, and which stands up remarkably well, with only two or three clinkers over the course of [what was once] a double-album. I also put on More Songs About Buildings & Food, the Talking Heads' second album release, which was a lot of fun, too. While Remain in Light was, at the time, a revealatory album, it does not hold up quite so well, being too busy (although Eno's backing vocals are terrific). These lounge activities were accompanied by one more glass of wine than I ought to have had (it's summer, hot, and a cold chardonney is a beautiful thing) and catching up on September issues of the New Yorker, which were depressing due to their heavy Election '04 content, much of which was predictive of the disappointing outcome in November, despite the hopeful notes sounded throughout. The Graham Parker boxed set I got from the counsellor some time back was the most fun; even barefooted, I had my soul shoes on.

Friday Cat Foto

It's a tradition.

Suburban Subterfuge
More housing is needed, and Bob Carr’s got the plan to get it done: with the new land release, new plans for subdivisions to be built according to a “village” centre concept, ensuring that everyone lives within walking distance of a shopping strip. It apparently doesn’t matter that there will be no mass transit infrastructure to speak of until 2019, requiring the residents to drive to work, and there doesn’t appear to be any plan for easing the environmental burden, whether in power or water usage. Carr’s plan is, as usual, a short-term vision for a long-term problem. What shops are going into these suburbs? Who’s going to run them? What has to be given away to get the major retail support? If Bob thinks Coles and Woolies are going to build supermarkets in his village centres, he must be deluded or already conceding the tax revenues to entice them. If he thinks the drilling being planned out in the aquifers is going to supply the increased demand for water, he must be listening to a latter-day Noah. As for electricity, well, he’s working on the coal-fired plants even as we speak, although it’s going to cost all of us plenty more even before the new houses go up. Vision, Mr. Carr, is a word meant to be used when the plan employs foresight, not desperation.

The Best-We’ve-Got-Right-Now-for-You Generation
“You go to war with the army you have,” is the best response Donald Rumsfeld could muster when questioned – by the troops themselves – why the army doesn’t have all the equipment it needs in Iraq. Sorry, but that’s the answer you give when you’re the army fighting defense, not offense, and as someone who grew up in the Second World War, he ought to know that. In that war, we built up the military and kept building until the war was over. In fact, we were building and shipping for the allies before we even joined in. This time, we didn’t plan, we haven’t executed well, and it’s the soldiers on the ground who suffer. Meanwhile, you won’t hear a lot about this from the conservative commentators around, at least not until they can figure out a way to keep Rumsfeld the “best Secretary of Defense . . . ever.” They just don’t get it, do they?

Festival or Famine
With the news of Marianne Faithful pulling out from performing in The Black Rider at the Sydney Festival this year, aren’t we glad we opted instead to go see the Leonard Cohen tribute? Yes, but then, we probably were, anyway. Meanwhile, we also hope Ms. Faithful will recover well. Her career’s rise and fall and rise again and again has offered great entertainment at its peaks, and I hear her new album is her best work since Broken English, which is a tempting prospect.

Wire Act
I finally made it out to see Hero last night, which M. left me to do on my own, there being too many battle scenes for her taste, but I think she ought to have come along. Although, yes, there are vast troop movements, this isn’t Return of the King or one of the usual epochal Camelot films, although there is a mythic, Arthurian quality. Instead, and in addition to the appeal of the story itself, it’s one of the most brilliantly colored movies I think I’ve ever seen, not to disparage in any way the restored print I saw a while back of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, I think, spoiled the graceful arial effects, or, at least, they didn’t come off so well in this film, perhaps because of the kind of 3D-style camera-work that was often used with them. This is not to say, however, that any of the actors were themselves ungraceful; they were, immensely so. The music was brilliant, and the story full of nuances to be mulled over and discussed for their present-day significance and universality. Something about these political creation tales, legends of the ancients, when heroes strode the world in grand, epochal fashion, resonates within us, regardless of the cultural source. War and peace, love and relationships, patriotism and partisanship . . . all these things were present and not simply glossed. The feelings, the passions, aroused within this movie are deep, with a surface polish that is hard to see past sometimes, but lets us know there is so much more beneath just the same. I kept thinking of a particular niece, too, whose present studies in Chinese language would make for some fine points of discussion, I’m sure, vis-à-vis the spoken words vs. the subtitles, perhaps some insights on the use of dialects, and the subtleties at work in the story and presentation.

Merry Christmas, You Bastards
It’s an interesting proposition, one raised, as Miranda Devine rightly claims, year after year, that Christmas is under attack. Oh-my-God. What will we do? Sadly, what we hear more about these days isn’t the same as what the Christians used to ask, that we “keep Christ in Christmas,” but instead it’s a kind of Wahhibist hue and cry for Christmas to be celebrated in full force by everyone. No secular society here. Instead, some chicken sandwich shop doesn’t want to put up a nativity scene, and they’re anti-Christian. The city spends hundreds of thousands of dollars more on decorations around town and they’re not enough, they’re “grim.” While there are a number of people of conservative political mindsets who claim it’s non-Christians making it hard on the “rest of us,” in fact, the claim that secular forces are conspiring to disallow religious celebrations in public is equally a myth, and it make me angry to have these fundamentalist mental cases throwing this in my face every year. Growing up, I witnessed a move from civic decorations devoted to fir trees, Santa Claus, and reindeer to efforts inclusive of other religious festivals of the season, with menorahs and Davidic stars mixed in among the other tinselled streetlamp wraps and banners. There were always pretty lights and colorful placards and so forth, and it was very pleasant. And since those days, nothing’s changed – nothing, except that lately, since the 1980’s, I’d say, there has been a growing discontent among conservatives over their depth of control. I’ve lately spent some time re-reading literature from the 1930’s and ‘40’s, and it’s very plain to see that conservatism used to feel it encompassed morality and then lost its grip over the course of the two World Wars. Although the 1950’s saw the fist clutch more tightly, the pressure exerted only caused what it tried to hold onto to squeeze out explosively during the 1960’s and ‘70’s, and the fragmentation that occurred has only recently moved to reassemble social order, albeit in a new inclusive fashion than previously. For the last twenty years, however, that fist is closing again, and the pundits of conservatism, such as Miranda Devine, Rush Limbaugh, Fred Nile, Jerry Falwell, have risen to decry the lack of morality in public, and they choose to do this by “astroturfing” the FCC with indecency complaints, using the media to cavil against chicko-shops and an insufficiency of Christmas cheeriness at Town Hall. This serves to raise the ire of small-minded people, who then proceed to support the broader agenda at work. But look, it’s not as bad as they’re making out. There’s tinsel everywhere, tacky, yes, but present up and down the main streets of suburb and city. The shopping malls and storefronts have their fake snow and plastic evergreens. There’s no lack of Salvos begging spare change, Santas in “North Pole” villages for your annual photo distribution to the rellies. At least one house in each town is decorated with enough lights and Frosty Snowmen to see its quarterly energy bill exceed its mortgage repayment by an order of magnitude, and the traffic will be abysmal with everyone driving by to see it. There are even little stables with Wise Men and Christ Childs overlooked by 60-watt angels. The non-Christians are not unhappy the Christians make a point of Christmas, and the secularists only bemoan the shabbiness of the decorations’ quality. (Fairy lights and tinsel and bauble-hung pines look a bit dismal in these southern climes, and it doesn’t help to substitute palms or eucalypts.) So maybe it isn’t Christmas that’s under siege. Maybe it’s just the pressure of all those gifts you’re going to have to get, the hot weather, and the sense of enforced cheer. Maybe if you celebrated Christmas itself, you could stop picking on everyone else who isn’t doing it to your standard. Just a suggestion.

Mountain Greenery
So we were up in the mountains, as the Laurie Anderson piece starts, but we don’t go on from there in the same vein. Instead, we were visiting Katoomba, meeting with friends there and having a relaxing weekend away in the Blue Mountains. We overnighted at the Carrington, a kind of Overlook Hotel, but without the ghosts, and had a nice look around, including, naturally the Three Sisters, a natural feature of the landscape I can’t seem to stay away from – this is the third time for me.

I’m going to have to see a bit more of the local natural wonders eventually, but I’m not going to kick about it. In fact, although the Catskills might be the most easily comparable location in the States, it seems quite pleasant indeed up there. That might be less true during fire season, and winter gets a little chilly, no doubt, but I like that. Certainly, it would be quiet, and it’s always very green and restful. I should stop thinking of retirement now, though, and get back to work.

Power, Absolutely
We don’t have Niagara Falls turning any turbines around here, and nuclear plants don’t operate as promised (and never have), so all we can rely on for electricity are coal-fired power plants, by and large. They’re rough on the environment, and demand is higher than they can supply readily, especially in summer, leading to the latest Carr government innovation: a special levy. From the article, it sounds like Penrith and the western margins of the city are where the trouble is, but a lot of the money is in the CBD, so I expect the levy not to be very favorably structured for unit-dwellers around town. I’d like to get some better details though, and soon; it’s only fair, if they’re going to charge me, that they tell me about it first. I just renewed by EnergyAustralia contract, too, which I’d expect to be honoured. There is no honor among politicians, however.

Southerly Buster
Yesterday’s temperatures triggered a burst of colder air sweeping in off the sea by the late afternoon, bringing not only a welcome relief as I walked to the Parramatta station but also, by around eight or nine o’clock, a brief patter of rain. The sound, scattered raindrops pattering on the metal awning beneath our windows, was distinct, but it’s been so long, I didn’t recognize it at first; I wasn’t even sure where it was coming from. The rain didn’t last long overnight, but this morning dawned cool and grey and with a bit of a downpour here and there over the area, leaving the sidewalks and roadways gleaming, freshly washed. Such a relief, however brief it will yet prove, that the rainy season is not quite finished. As I post this, however, the sun has come out to torment me further.

Homeland Insufficiency
Tom Ridge has resigned, but to call the results of his tenure as Director of Homeland Security “mixed” is to be generous. Yes, explosives-detection equipment has been installed in some airports, but while luggage remains largely unscreened (other than: “did you pack your bags yourself” inquiries), National Guardsmen loiter around the magnometers, M16’s in hand, while inept fetishists require a sniff of your shoes or feel up your grandmother. Good work, Tom. As for color-coded alerts, well, thank God we had John Ashcroft screaming hysterically like a panicked schoolgirl, because that put Ridge’s calm befuddlement in context: I don’t know what’s wrong with John, he seemed to say, we’re still only ON HIGH ALERT! To be fair, American business interests haven’t done anything other than whinge and drag their feet over any idea of investing in security improvements themselves, and that has made things difficult for Ridge, especially given the lousy budget he had to work with: “My President created a new Cabinet position but all I got was this lousy t-shirt.” Or pantone chart. International businesses have long sought ways to avoid regulation and increase profit, and they’ve generally been very successful. Nevertheless, how much business are they going to do after they’ve shipped in a container full of nukes? Upgrade or die, I say. The cost of doing business has now grown to include securing commercial shipping – air, sea, road, rail. Negotiate a tax break if you can, but otherwise, get it done.

It remains to be seen whom Bush will appoint by February, but I sincerely hope it’s someone with vision and force, not just another bobbing head or Cold Warrior.

1 December
It's officially summer here now, which explains the heat. My God, it's hot. O.k., so it's really only 101 Fahrenheit, that's not hot enough for you? On the first day of summer? Yeah, that's what I thought. Of course, I'm not really very far west from the city, but every kilometer counts when you can only rely on lovely sea breezes to cool things off to a reasonable temperature. Down by the harbour, it's a balmy 27.9, whereas out here, it's 38.5. Going out at lunch, I could feel the moisture evaporating off my eyeballs, much as it did when we visited Las Vegas. Maybe it's not really that bad. It would help if they'd fix the air conditioning in the office. Three months of this. Of course, it's really longer than than; we do have to contend with the solstice and then wait for the equinox (note: Northern Hemisphere-centric links), which effectively add another month of hot weather. No wonder the city shuts down over Christmas-New Year's. Culture-shock temper tantrum? You were warned in the masthead.

Double-Plus Liberty
Policy Review has an article by Tod Lindberg on Neoconservatism’s Liberal Legacy in which he argues that neocons, such as himself, are in fact liberals. Well, they serve a liberal agenda in that they balance freedom and equality in matters of public policy. The article strikes me as a bit of double-think, but there is a valid point being made, insofar as neoconservatives are operating within a democratic context. The gloss on the moral basis of the judgments serving the polarity of the neocon position, however, ultimately argues towards status quo more than it does towards positive change. Society will decide, ultimately what the neocon agenda is, by balancing any extremes therein with extremes from the opposite end of the political spectrum, with the ability of the public to accept greater equality for a greater number increasing as their own freedoms expand and can be more generous. Thus, gay rights, for example, will ultimately come to pass – or not – based on society’s ability and its intrinsic need to accept the equality of homosexuals once the rest of society’s freedom is no longer perceived as being threatened thereby. It’s a persuasive argument, but it boils down to: “I’ve got mine, Jack; screw you.” For all its truth, society can do better. Every change is a paradigm shift; every change is a revolution, at least insofar as you refuse to think critically and dispassionately from a standpoint outside your own selfishness. It is selfishness that pushes people to opposite ends of the political divide, and it is selfishness that keeps them there, mocking their opponents, attacking what they refuse to understand. “Free your mind, and the rest will follow,” as the saying goes, and it’s true: once you can step outside hidebound tradition, once you can see the other point of view, it becomes difficult indeed to be less than compassionate. Paul Wolfowitz and the like may claim the neoconservative label, and they may apply it to George Bush and his ilk, but they do not serve a compassionate purpose. The morality of Bush, the political agenda of the neocons in Washington DC, these seek to balance their freedom over the equality of others, judging according to their perception of the superiority of their own moral system. It’s circular, and it’s selfish.