Finally. Hope it does some good.

It won’t.

If they thought it would do any good, then they wouldn’t have the spine to do it.

We know they don’t have the spine to do anything with any practical effect, because otherwise they would have done it by now. They could have instituted broad trade sanctions, or prevented the export of military goods including F-35 parts and steel armour plating.

Well, what are the costs of moves like those. I’m working on a moral and humanist calculus, Albanese may be partially working on that, but he’ll also be working from a political calculus.

The US has made it pretty clear that Israel is their favourite protectorate. If, as you say in another comment, we are owned by the US, then does that mean in the heirarchy of protectorates we are lower than Israel and therefore likely to seriously damage our standing with the US by imposing arms sanctions? And what does that mean for Australian military defence? And technology supply?

For one thing, we’d have to be ready for massive and disproportionate responses from the fascists in charge in the US. Is our defence establishment ready for that? Our population psychologically ready for that?

I’m proposing these, not as my values, but to demonstrate that this is more complicated for the politicians than for ordinary people. PK on Politics Now podcast had a good discussion on this last week.

Good points, it is easy forget that a lot of the big IR issues are associated with the US and can have significant knock-on effects as a result. I do find realpolitik quite sickening when applied to human rights issues, though.

It is. Theres a point in things where you have to say as a nation we’re willing to wear the consequences of our convictions.

Its a shame that i feel that Australians aren’t willing to accept costs like those for what i still believe are broadly held convictions about how we want to live in the world.

Its a shame that i feel that Australians aren’t willing to accept costs like those

Aren’t they? Have they been asked? Labor isn’t willing to accept the cost. That isn’t the same thing.

Until a Government actually takes us down that road i suppose we can’t really know what costs Australians would be willing to endure, so i guess its my hunch.

Labor wont take us down that road unless they are forced to.

OK so my memory might be a bit hazy but even so…

In '99 I don’t think anyone knew we’d flip Howard on sending troops to East Timor to stop the massacres. The last rally (or one of the last rallies) we had in Lismore NSW before Howard changed his tune was almost a riot. I think it was Ian Causley, the Nationals member for Page who came to speak at the rally.

He repeated the same thing we’d heard for two or so weeks, something like ‘We can’t go to war with Indonesia’. Someone in the crowd yelled ‘Give me a gun, I’ll go’. Within seconds hundreds of people were chanting and yelling ‘Give us guns, give us guns, give us guns’.

He was fucking SPOOKED. Farmers, hippies, students, workers all chanting to be armed so they could liberate East Timor. I wish I had video.

Anyway, my point is, it has to come from the grass-roots or it wont happen.