uncrowded House

Type in
"Kerr's Proclamation Dissolving Parliament"
on Google, and you can read the proclamation and hear some talking...And some "boo"-ing, actually. ...

I got interested in Australia's government shutdown of 1975 as our own, what is it, 17th "shutdown" continues, boggling reason...

===================
PROCLAMATION
By His Excellency, the Governor-General of Australia

WHEREAS by section 57 of the Constitution it is provided that if the House of Representatives passes any proposed law, and the Senate rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with amendments to which the House of Representatives will not agree, and if after an interval of three months the House of Representatives, in the next session, again passes the proposed law with or without any amendments which have been made, suggested, or agreed to by the Senate and the Senate rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with amendments to which the House of Representatives will not agree, the Governor-General may dissolve the Senate and the House of Representatives simultaneously:

ANDWHEREAS the conditions upon which the Governor-General is empowered by that section of the Constitution to dissolve the Senate and the House of Representatives simultaneously have been fulfilled in respect of the several proposed laws entitled -

II  Health Insurance Levy Act  1974
II  Health Insurance Levy Assessment Act  1974
II  Income Tax (International Agreements) Act  1974
II  Minerals (Submerged Lands) Act  1974
II  Minerals (Submerged Lands) (Royalty) Act  1974
II  National Health Act  1974
II  Conciliation and Arbitration Act  1974
II  Conciliation and Arbitration Act (No. 2)  1974
II  National Investment Fund Act  1974
II  Electoral Laws Amendment Act  1974
II  Electoral Act  1975
II  Privy Council Appeals Abolition Act  1975
II  Superior Court of Australia Act  1974
II  Electoral Re-distribution (New South Wales) Act  1975
II  Electoral Re-distribution (Queensland) Act  1975
II  Electoral Re-distribution (South Australia) Act  1975
II  Electoral Re-distribution (Tasmania) Act  1975
II  Electoral Re-distribution (Victoria) Act  1975
II  Broadcasting and Television Act (No. 2)  1974
II  Television and Stations Licence Fees Act  1974
II  Broadcasting Stations Licence Fees Act  1974

NOWTHEREFORE, I Sir John Robert Kerr, the Governor-General of Australia, do by this my Proclamation dissolve the Senate and the House of Representatives.

[[ He dissolves them.  ("We're melting!...melting...!!") ]]

(L.S.)  Given under my Hand and the Great Seal of Australia on 11 November 1975.

By His Excellency's Command,
MALCOLM FRASER
Prime Minister

JOHN R. KERR
Governor-General

God Save The Queen!

===================

-30-

watch me wallabies feed, Reid

excerpt:
The Christian Science Monitor
Global News Blog

Government shutdown?  Australians might suggest the nuclear option
by John Zubrzycki, Correspondent

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

Some Australians watching the US federal government shutdown unfold will be feeling a sense of deja vu -- that is, those old enough to have lived through the supply crisis of November 1975, when the Australian government also shut down.

At the time, the blocking of the government's supply bills by the opposition-dominated Senate here triggered a chain of events that led to

the greatest crisis in Australia's political history --

the dismissal of Parliament by the Queen's representative.

Late on the morning of Nov. 11, 1975, Australia's Governor General John Kerr, unelected and answerable only to the Crown, fired then-Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, whose government had deferred the passing of two appropriation bills, which effectively left the government out of pocket by about $4 billion a month in adjusted US dollars.

Mr. Kerr then appointed an opposition leader, willing to pass the bills, as prime minister.  But when Mr. Whitlam's members revolted and passed a no-confidence motion in the new prime minister, Kerr wielded the "nuclear option": 

He dismissed both the Senate and the House of Representatives, triggering a double dissolution election.  It all happened in just a few hours.  And there has never been a government shutdown in Australia since.

The controversy over whether the unelected Kerr should have counseled Whitlam before sacking him remains the single most debated political event in Australia.

Elected in a landslide just three years earlier, Whitlam believed he would have the public on his side with a radical solution to replace government expenditure with bank credit.  To keep things running, employees and suppliers of government goods were to be given IOUs guaranteed by banks.

...[David Smith, lecturer in American politics and foreign policy at the United States Studies Centre at Sydney University in Darlington, Australia]:
"If there was a mechanism like double dissolution in America, this budget crisis would be resolved a lot more quickly
because there would be this 'nuclear option'.  If the president could dissolve the legislature and go to an election that's exactly what Obama would be contemplating at this point....

Australians look back at November 1975 as a very traumatic period in Australia's history. 

But it is actually an example of the system working.  There was a crisis and it was resolved

pretty quickly."

With the US having the most rigid fixed-term system in the democratic world, Americans, he says, don't have that luxury.

"In the United States we've seen four of these standoffs in the last three years.  We now have the very serious possibility that the United States will default.  It seems like this will drag on as long as Barack Obama is president and as long as there is a Republican majority in the House of Representatives."

[end Christian Science Monitor article]

a review of the action in the Washington Post; writer -- Max Fisher:

Prime Minister Gough Whitlam rejected the opposition's demands but couldn't bring the parties to a compromise, and the federal budget went unfunded.  Then, on the morning of Nov. 11, Whitlam announced he would hold early elections not for the House but for half of the opposition-controlled Senate (typically, only one half of the Senate goes up for reelection at a time).  Kerr, as the official representative of the queen, who is technically still sovereign over Australia, summoned Whitlam to his office and fired him at 1:15pm.

Fifteen minutes later, Kerr appointed the leader of the opposition Liberal Party, Malcolm Fraser, as Whitlam's replacement.  By 2 p.m., before most even realized what had happened, Fraser got his allies in the previously deadlocked Senate to push through the government spending bill.  Then everything kind of fell into chaos.  When the ruling Labor Party, in the House, learned about Whitlam's firing and Fraser's appointment, its members revolted with a no-confidence vote against Fraser. 

At 4:50 p.m., Kerr dissolved the rest of Parliament, essentially firing everyone, with a formal proclamation that ended with the words "God Save the Queen."

A month later, Australia held national elections to replace the now-dissolved government.  The opposition, led by Fraser, swept to victory in both houses. 

Australia has not had another shutdown since.

[[ My Favorite Sentence: 
Australia. Has. Not. Had. Another. Shutdown. Since.
Instead of throwing tantrums, they do their jobs. ]]

This sort of thing, of course, could never happen in the United States.  The fact that Australia could pull it off is a quirk of its history as a former British colony that, unlike the United States, never fully broke away.

Australia's governor general does not typically fire prime ministers, or do much of anything.  It's a largely ceremonial position....

Australia is now an independent country but still a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, which means it recognizes the British monarchy as technically in charge. 

That monarch still has formal power over Australia's government but almost never actually uses it.

The 1975 crisis was the exception.

The governor general technically acts solely on behalf of the monarch -- the office was established before telephones existed, after all.  This means that, legally speaking, the 1975 Australian government funding crisis ended because Queen Elizabeth II dismissed everyone in the government.  In practice, the governor general did the actual firing.

You might find yourself wishing that the United States could follow Australia's example.... Maybe, if we ask nicely, Britain will take us back?
[end Washington Post excerpt]

-30-

tie me kangaroo down, Mr. Speaker

In the late nineties while working as a lobbyist at the state level, I noticed a trend of

behavior - attitude - entrenched expectations

among some newly elected state representatives and senators and it was weird because it was a trend completely unexpected by me, and undeniable as I observed, even though I wanted to mentally "deny" it -- no no, think positive, pretend it's better. ...

I found it really difficult and somewhat psychologically painful to watch a situation go from being Positive and Admirable and something you were honored to be part of, to -- instead -- something that was devolving right in front of your eyes.

It's like -- I think as human beings we naturally want things to
Progress,
to Get Better --
or at least Stay the Same if they were already good. ...

To watch things get worse is a bummer.
(Or, as Hunter Thompson would write, "a King Hell bummer"....)

The attitude and approach I noticed with a lot of the new legislators, elected after Term Limits took effect, could best be described as emotionally immature and subtly hostile.

I noticed it with one person, then a couple of others, then stepped back and forced myself to be willing to see what I was seeing, and was sort of mortified / horrified -- felt like,
What is this?!
Where is this behavior and these attitudes coming from??
Why are these people behaving alike??
(pods?  body snatchers?)

Felt some exasperation, and one evening in a telephone conversation with a member of the Appropriations Committee, we got on the topic of the many newly elected people, and he said something and I responded, too quickly without softening my words, "Some of these people -- they just act like big babies...!"
and was a little sorry the minute it came out of my mouth, thought I'd taught myself to "modify" better...obviously not well enough...
and this Republican representative answered immediately, with equanimity, "Yeh--they do cry and bang their rattles, don't they?"
ha-ha-ha
I had not been expecting him to say that...
he was right on the Same Page with what I'd been observing & thinking....

Crying and banging their rattles

Kicking their feet and throwing their toys

-------------- Are these exhibits of immature, belligerent behavior mostly in politics?  Or in our society at large?
Do people copy this behavior from our political representatives and leaders?
Or do politicians do it because the whole society does it, & they are just a sub-section of the whole society?

The Whole society does not behave in an immature fashion.
Sometimes I blame reality TV shows because they set up situations where people are supposed to misbehave and argue over nothing, for the cameras (which is not the same as Really Meaning what you're saying) -- then it's on TV, which magnifies the behavior, and makes it seem like behavior that's desirable to emulate, by virtue of being ON t-v.

During this "shutdown" of our national government, so many Comments from people over the Internet call the foot-dragging and tantrum-ing "immature," "childish," etc., and I keep recalling the "Banging-Rattles" conversation ...

(the Indiana guy):  "I am not getting What I Want and I don't even know what that is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We will Not Be DISRESPECTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

(when first read that, thought: 
Hmmh.  Has he been -- uh -- "dissed" in -- some sort of, er,...'hood?? -- -- or -- something?

How could he be "dissed" in a "'hood"?  looks like he lives on some kinda farm .  ...

This Evening -- headlines in IBTimes:
** Shutdown Splits GOP As Disapproval Of Party Hits 70%
** Attack Ad Compares John Boehner To Wailing Baby

Oct. 3 Citizen Comments

--------------
==    Claude R., New Jersey -- Mr. Boehner has had many opportunities before to do the right thing, but he has never shown the backbone or moral fiber.  Mr. Boehner's problem is that the GOP is a victim of its own success.  It created a majority by assembling a coalition of one-issue voters who only oppose but never propose anything positive.  Their 40 votes to repeal the health care law, and now their scorched earth tactics that threaten to destroy the economy, only exemplify their intellectual and emotional infantilism.

These are the fruits of Karl Rove's strategy of appealing to haters and fanatics, and only looking as far ahead as the next election.  Now Mr. Boehner is in the sway of cultists, and must choose between his Speakership or the country's future.  Which will it be?

--------------
==    Rob, Cortlandt Manor, NY -- It is completely unfathomable to me that a few, and even one person (speaker of the house) can hold up the wheels of progress here, and in the world.  Who's watching the store?...The majority has already spoken on health care, taxes and a host of other issues, that's it.

When these people who are obviously in the minority are disrupting things like this, and definitely not doing their jobs, how do we fire them?  They go back to their re-jiggered electoral districts and get re-elected by a demographic that they essentially created in their own district.  That has to change, and these incompetent extremists need to be voted out (fired).

We need new rules on our governance that close these ridiculous loopholes, and come into the 21st century....None of this should be allowed.  Life is hard enough.

--------------
==    JTH, Tennessee -- Boehner's House of Cards needs to Fold.

Their destructive folly demonstrates their interest is not in the interest of America.  It's all about power and imposing their viewpoint on the majority....The Tea Party are just the opposite of Patriots.

--------------
==    Ozark Homesteader, Arkansas -- I never thought I'd see the day when John Boehner was among the most reasonable Republicans in Congress.  It says a lot for the radical turn that many in the Republican Party have taken for Boehner to look so reasonable.  The turn is causing the wheels to fall off the party.  At least Boehner recognizes that fact.

--------------
==    Bri, Columbus Ohio -- The Australian government shut down once in 1975, because the legislature had failed to fund it.  There was a deadlock that couldn't be solved.  Governor John Kerr got order from the Queen and dismissed the prime minister and appointed a replacement.  The spending bill was passed immediately.  Only 3 hrs. later the rest of the Parliament was dismissed.  There was an election held and they started from scratch.  There hasn't been another Government shut-down ever since.

-30-

Boehner Liberation

news site Reader Comments, re:  shutdown

--------------
==   Science fiction writer Robert Heinlein once suggested all those running for office had to prove their commitment to serving others through 5 years of service to country (not just military - but hard unpleasant necessary work - not of their choosing).  The idea was to discourage the greedy from running for office.  Perhaps the idea has some merit.

--------------
==   ...Grow up, Marlin...open the government, get back to the real work, and stop your whining!

--------------
==   At first I thought this might be the shutdown quote of the day:
"We're not going to be disrespected.  We have to get something out of this.  And I don't know what that even is." - Rep. Marlin Stutzman R-Ind.
But then I saw this:
"I need my paycheck.  That's the bottom line." - Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC)...

[[ For me, the obvious self-absorption and shallowness of thought is the most disturbing... You know, -- for example, if I ask my boss about a problem, or a situation, he (Thank Goodness) does not answer me by saying that his Salary Number is the most important goal of this company that we work for. ... (...and "THAT'S the Bottom Line" - !  People who don't really work think they sound all Business-y if they say the phrase "bottom line"...LBNOL [laughing but not out loud] ... ]]

--------------
==    "We have to get something out of this.  And I don't know what that even is."
sez 12 year old Valley Girl Marlin Stutzman.

--------------
==    Gotham-ington
with the D.C. Comedians
a GOP / Tea Party production

Cast and characters:

Starring:
President Obama as Batman
(Not yet cast) Robin
Sen. Harry Reid as Alfred the faithful and resourceful butler

Speaker John Boehner as The Joker
Sen. Ted Cruz as The Riddler
Rep. Peter King as The Penguin
Rep. Eric Cantor as Mr. Freeze
Rep. Rand Paul as The Scarecrow

Poison Ivy interchangeably portrayed by Reps. Bachmann, Morris-Rogers and Blackburn and Princess Priebus as Catwoman.

----------------- [[ this is filed under W for WISH I'D SAID THAT -- it's my kind of thing, but can take no credit, it was contributed by a poster on the Internet ]]

--------------
==    Cruz is from Canada.

--------------
==    He may have been born in Canada (eh?), but he represents the people of Texas and not very well at that...Seems that he does a better job of representing his own interests.

--------------
==    This makes me so angry.  They now believe they have enough votes from BOTH the Democrats and Republicans to pass a clean resolution and the GOP goes and refuses to take it to a vote.  Anyone think this isn't the fault of the GOP now?

[[ The whole Republican Party is being damaged in reputation and ability to carry out their jobs, by a small minority of the party. ...some people need to be sat in the corner to write some promises a hundred times, or something.... ]]

--------------
==    John Boehner wants to keep his Speakership but is afraid to upset the Tea Party and therefore lose it.  If this is the case, he is not an effective Speaker.  He can't even control his own party.  He needs to step up and do what is right for the country and he needs to take on the Tea Party like a man and quit cowering from them.  Time to face down the schoolyard bullies.  I bet this would be a liberating experience for him and us.

--------------
==    The Republican Tea Party is forcing Obama to choose between either (a) sacrificing global prosperity or (b) abandoning the Constitutional democratic principle of majority rule.

Prosperity can be regained; democracy cannot.
If the GOP pushes America over the approaching precipice, history will record the event as the Great Tea Party Depression of 2013-20??.

If Obama capitulates again, history will record his surrender as the demise of American democracy.
Either way, it is clear that Tea Party Republicans are traitors.

--------------
==    wrldtrvlr3341 FL -- There have been so many companies reneging on their pension promises to workers, why not start a crusade for the U.S.A. to renege on pension promises to this congress??

--------------
==    Jim Steinberg - Fresno, California - Plan B:  Boehner holds his breath until President Obama and Congress rescind the Affordable Care Act.

-30-

Marlin is from Michigan; they outdo themselves

"...And I don't know what that even is."

"We're not going to be disrespected. 
We have to get something out of this.
And I don't know what that even is."

-- Congressman Marlin Stutzman (R-Indiana)

---------------------------
---------------------------

...Like the distant, yet insistent
pain
of a mysterious headache.

===========
Reader Comments on-line:

-- I so want to apologize for Marlin Stutzman being a member of Congress.  He lives about a mile from me, and represents my congressional district.  Prior to being a member of Congress he was our state representative, and later a state senator.  He does not represent the views of a large number of us in the district, nor our immediate community.

Marlin is from Michigan and moved a mile over the state line into Indiana and pretends to represent the people of Indiana.  He's actually an unofficial additional representative for the Michigan delegation, and received most of his income from partial ownership of Michigan agricultural holdings.  Much of that income is in the form of government farm subsidies....

Please don't believe that his viewpoints express those of all of his constituents.  Many of us oppose him ideologically, and personally, and would like nothing more than to replace him.  A difficult task in this heavily Republican gerrymandered district.

-- he inherited everything.  a 100% tax on inheritance would change a lot of attitudes among these rural GOP who "get everything on their own" and "don't need" any govt help

-- Sorry, respect is reserved for people with integrity and decency.

-- this guy reminds me of a famous character's line in a great movie, "Fatal Attraction"...
**** {"...I WILL NOT BE IGNOOOOORED!!"}

-- If you recall 17 years ago, Newt [Gingrich] forced the shut down then, in large part because he felt "disrespected" by being seated in the back of Air Force 1 on the ride back from Rabin's funeral in Israel.  Like this house member, Newt said as much.

-- They are doing fine.  They've gerrymandered themselves into a house majority for 10 years.  They lost the popular vote for congress but they won the most seats.  Their only fear is a challenger who is even more T-party-like (obnoxious), so they outdo themselves.  The only hope is to get gerrymandering overturned.

-- The tea party has given Boehner Stockholm Syndrome.

-- they have slung mud, called names and disrespected this president and everyone else who is not in the 1% for 5 years now.....

-- "We're not going to be disrespected" Rep. Stutzman told Washington Examiner....too late, that ship has sailed
[end, Reader Comments]
----------------------
==============

Democracies go through some moments which could be categorized as embarrassing, because we (the democracies) are not cut-and-dried and repressed, like in a totalitarian gov't.  Government by the people is not necessarily "highly organized" -- Democracy can be messy.  There's an expression about this -- I think it's English in origin -- where they say, "We'll muddle through."

...mh--they're "muddling" all right. ...

-30-

general admission

government shutdown


Reader Comment on Internet news site:

When you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there:  My favorite quote, so far, is from Representative Marlin Stutzman (R-IN): 

"We're not going to be disrespected. 

We have to get something out of this. 

And I don't know what that even is."

-30-

such great idleness inside Senate house

"Get Clean for Gene"
was a slogan in 1968 of some of Eugene McCarthy's youthful supporters.  He ran in the Democrat primary as an anti-war candidate -- like Bobby Kennedy -- and McCarthy showed so well in New Hampshire, historians include this as one of the factors contributing to Pres. Lyndon Johnson's decision not to seek re-election.

The phrase "get clean" meant clean-shaven -- the idea was kids with long hair and / or beards etc. would shave & get a hair-cut as an expression of support for the McCarthy candidacy.

Eugene McCarthy wrote a book which was published in 1969, titled The Year Of The People.

In it there's a passage about encountering, on the campaign trail, a group of nuns and clerics singing a song they wrote:  "Make the Scene with Gene."

(?)
That, my friend, was 1968. ...

__________________________
--[excerpt]--------- The primaries gave the people a chance to pass a judgment on the war, and in Democratic primary after primary they indicated their opposition.  In part because of that opposition, President Nixon is now free to act -- with little practical danger -- to bring the war in Vietnam to an end and also free to adopt much more open policies toward Russia and mainland China if he is willing.  This would also have been true, I believe, of Hubert Humphrey if he had been elected.

The campaign also helped to strengthen the challenge to the militarization of American life and American foreign policy -- the challenge that was being raised especially by the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate before my campaign, which was pursued by it during the campaign, and which is still being pushed with courage and vigor.

-----[excerpt]------------ *Mark Acuff, the writer, who directed our campaign in Nebraska, said..."Assorted Swedes and Frenchmen have been warning us for years that our inherently most difficult problem will be the adaptation of democracy to a technological culture with a population of hundreds of millions.  Today, however, it is not only the Black and the poor and the young who feel powerless to affect the machinations of the system.  In the last half of the 20th century, the smog-bound, tax-hounded, and radar-trapped suburbanite also feels cast adrift in a sea of technocracy where no one cares and, worse, no one listens."

===========
<<  That -- was written in 1969.
Old Italian saying:  "The more things change, the more they remain the same.">>

______________________________
Meanwhile, back at the ranch -- mh, no, meant back at the 21st century -- Daniel Mendelsohn wrote "Waiting For The Barbarians" And The Government Shutdown in The New Yorker:

-- Why is there such great idleness inside Senate house?
Why are the Senators sitting there, not passing any laws?

          Because the barbarians will arrive today.
          Why should the Senators still be making laws?
          The barbarians, when they come, will legislate.

_______We like to think that all great poetry has perennial significance, is "for the ages"; but these lines, written in Greek in 1898 and first published, in Egypt, in 1904, seem particularly prescient this week.

...The government...has ground to a halt -- not least because the most powerful men in the land, starting with the head of state himself, the emperor (who has "taken his position at the greatest of the city's gates / seated on his throne") and including his toga-wearing, jewel-encrusted officials, are also milling around waiting for the barbarians. 

___________________________
2 things --
one:  our society is not that messed up -- we aren't waiting passively, even expectantly, like these stumblers in the poem, for barbarians to come in and take us over
and
two:  government does not always have to be making new laws; we know there's no killing; no stealing.  ...

I imagine the Republicans want to hold off health care until they have a Republican in the White House, then pass it, and say it was their idea.

=================
{excerpts:  The New Yorker, October 1, 2013.  Mendelsohn.
The Year Of The People, by Eugene J. McCarthy.  Copyright, 1969.  Doubleday and Co., Inc., Garden City, New York}

-30-