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Sweet home Ulladulla: the Howard government is on the brink of trading away protection of Australian culture. The case is built on a pyramid of false reasoning.

Article Excerpt
In the course of his essay 'Rabbit: Syndrome: Australia and America', (Quarterly Essay 4, 2001, Black Inc) the historian, biographer and former political speech-writer Don Watson suggested that it was 'both wise and proper' to be on the side of US power. In a year when the predominant images on our TV screens have been of US tanks bursting into Baghdad and John Howard exchanging footwear with George W Bush, Watson's assertion may seem bleedingly obvious. But 'Rabbit Syndrome' was published in December 2001, and there was sufficient distance back then for him to qualify his passing remark with 'The question is, however, what is the wise and proper way to be on their side?'

Watson's essay is a critique of John Howard's unabashed enthusiasm for being Bush's 'deputy sheriff'. In the end Watson perversely suggests that we drop all the pretence and apply forthwith to become the next State in the American union:

Far better than playing America's deputy in South-East Asia ... let us petition for inclusion in the American union. Demand it ... Think of what we would gain. More dignity, more influence and more peace of mind. It's all upside, surely. No more fifty-cent dollars. No more current-account nightmare. We can amortise the debt. Let us integrate fully with the world's biggest economy and take our place under the missile shield ... No agonising foreign policy decisions, no more excruciating arguments about national identity. The cultural cringe ends the day we join ... We should put it to them straight, like a business deal. (pp. 54-5)

I was reminded of Watson's essay when reading a piece by Mark Day in the Australian's 'Media' supplement, 2/4/03. Writing about Australia's approaching negotiations for a free trade deal with the USA, Day more or less agreed with the American position that Australia's local content rules for TV are a distortion of the market and a barrier to unfettered consumption by Australians of American content. Day didn't exactly say that we should hand over the keys to the transmitters, relax with a Vanilla Coke and let the endless re-runs of Dobie Gillis, My Favourite Martian and Bonanza just wash over us, but he did the next best thing.

In an interesting variation on the 'Red-blooded Caveman' argument used by most cultural darwinists sooner or later in these debates, Day attacked the Australian film and TV industry for not being ambitious...

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