As our 'friends' in Canberra dive snout first into the final week of Federal Parliament, it's a good time to reflect on the dog shit of a year that was 2010. A year that has consisted of progression, followed by regression and is ending in stagnation. In fact, we are without a doubt behind where we finished up last year. The country is split, one side says this, the other says that, and the vast majority says so what.
In the year up until now, we've gone from a popular, if dictatorial, Prime Minister, challenged by a progressive and thoroughly wet Liberal Opposition Leader, to a fledgling PM finding her feet amongst a hung parliament and up against a hard line conservative member of the A-team.
We've gone from almost certainly having an ETS, to almost certainly not knowing what the fuck is going on. We've gone from quiet resentment of refugees to full blown yelling at town meetings followed by leaflet dropping fits of hysterical fear. We've gone from patting ourselves on the back for how our banks got through the GFC, to wanting to rip them apart. We've gone from kowtowing to the mining industry, to kowtowing to the mining industry. We've gone from having polls every month, to having one every five minutes, despite the fact that they all tell us the same thing: We don't know what we want, but we want it now. Fast.
We have to start all over again. Issues that had consensus last year are now back to square one style bickering. Everything is back in committee. The status quo is fighting back, and it's winning. 2008 and 2009 were epitomised by the word 'change', 2010 introduced the qualifier 'as long as I don't have to'. It does not bode well for 2011.
In the mean time, you can look forward to some interesting announcements over the Christmas break. They usually slip them out while people are still too busy digesting their stodgy Christmas lunch, and the media are obsessed with fluffy cat-stuck-in-a-tree-happy-good-times. As for myself I will take a break until the New Year, or until something interesting happens, and by interesting I mean bad.
Merry Christmas and my God have mercy on us all.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
The Tides They Are a-Changing
At the end of 2006, a somewhat surprising thing happened. John Howard went on the 7.30 Report and completed a very slow u-turn on the issue of climate change.
"I accept that climate change is a challenge, I accept the broad theory about global warming…[t]he truth is, I'm not that sceptical. I think the weight of scientific evidence suggests that there is significant and damaging growth in the levels of greenhouse gas emissions."
The cynics on the progressive side of politics, myself included, immediately thought that these were the words of a man spooked by the imminent rise of Kevin Rudd, a man that looked almost exactly like him, except almost 20 years younger. The conservative side of politics however, seemed stunned, almost…sad. Andrew Bolt looked lost, confused. He didn't know what to say, and he always knows what to say.
It was the same for numerous other conservative, slightly camp talk back radio hosts who spent a large amount of their air time laughing up the 'bullshit' scenarios of the climate change believing nut bags. All while the John Howard battle standard remained hoisted proudly atop their station's AM transmitter. All of the sudden, JWH had said something that conflicted with their views and they were punch drunk. When Rupert Murdoch joined the climate chorus the whole of 2GB went on suicide watch.
That was four years ago and since then we've had a change of government with climate change as a major issue in the election, an abortive attempt to do something about it, wrist-slashing and nashing of teeth from the opposition, and now a concerted fight back from the climate sceptics.
Momentum was lost, and many people have started to second guess themselves. People have tired of hearing the same thing over and over again. There has been a sudden realisation that things would have to change, that stuff would cost more, and that lifestyles were at stake. Then someone mentioned Australia's population and immigration figures, and climate change policy was well and truly fucked.
It's not surprising that the asylum issue has again raised its predictable head, as the 'other' is always first to cop it when lifestyles are under threat. The only way to protect an unsustainable lifestyle is to prevent anyone else from getting it. It seems that many people have decided that it's time to get selfish.
It's become fashionable because people believe it is unfashionable. Believing in climate change has become akin to that horrible thing of being politically correct. Believing in climate change will soon be in the same social dust bin multiculturalism, tolerance and basic human decency. It's the easy decision to take, and above all it's comfortable. It's easy to be sceptical, because then you don't have to do anything.
We're back where we started, an argument between a side desperate for action, and another who have decided they just don't care.
Everything is fine, now what's on TV?
"I accept that climate change is a challenge, I accept the broad theory about global warming…[t]he truth is, I'm not that sceptical. I think the weight of scientific evidence suggests that there is significant and damaging growth in the levels of greenhouse gas emissions."
The cynics on the progressive side of politics, myself included, immediately thought that these were the words of a man spooked by the imminent rise of Kevin Rudd, a man that looked almost exactly like him, except almost 20 years younger. The conservative side of politics however, seemed stunned, almost…sad. Andrew Bolt looked lost, confused. He didn't know what to say, and he always knows what to say.
It was the same for numerous other conservative, slightly camp talk back radio hosts who spent a large amount of their air time laughing up the 'bullshit' scenarios of the climate change believing nut bags. All while the John Howard battle standard remained hoisted proudly atop their station's AM transmitter. All of the sudden, JWH had said something that conflicted with their views and they were punch drunk. When Rupert Murdoch joined the climate chorus the whole of 2GB went on suicide watch.
That was four years ago and since then we've had a change of government with climate change as a major issue in the election, an abortive attempt to do something about it, wrist-slashing and nashing of teeth from the opposition, and now a concerted fight back from the climate sceptics.
Momentum was lost, and many people have started to second guess themselves. People have tired of hearing the same thing over and over again. There has been a sudden realisation that things would have to change, that stuff would cost more, and that lifestyles were at stake. Then someone mentioned Australia's population and immigration figures, and climate change policy was well and truly fucked.
It's not surprising that the asylum issue has again raised its predictable head, as the 'other' is always first to cop it when lifestyles are under threat. The only way to protect an unsustainable lifestyle is to prevent anyone else from getting it. It seems that many people have decided that it's time to get selfish.
It's become fashionable because people believe it is unfashionable. Believing in climate change has become akin to that horrible thing of being politically correct. Believing in climate change will soon be in the same social dust bin multiculturalism, tolerance and basic human decency. It's the easy decision to take, and above all it's comfortable. It's easy to be sceptical, because then you don't have to do anything.
We're back where we started, an argument between a side desperate for action, and another who have decided they just don't care.
Everything is fine, now what's on TV?
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Stand for Nothing, Win at Everything
There's nothing like a big foreign visit to perk up a Government that's a bit down in the dumps, and Hilary Rodham Clinton's bright orange pants-suit is just the distraction the PM needs at the moment. The Gillard Labor Government have copped it in the last few weeks, because despite being in Government, and having technically 'won' the election (because the side in Government are the people who won - always), they apparently lost it. And people who lose are losers. And losers suck. Winners are the ones we like, and the people who won are in Opposition, even though they lost.
In the weeks following the election people have spoken of Labor like they are in Opposition, like they are once again in the political wilderness, wherever the fuck that is, probably somewhere in South Australia.
However strange or unfair as that may be, as sure as higher socio-economic tax avoidance and everyone's inevitable lonely death, the Labor Party are once again having a good old soul-search. Young up-and-comers are providing hints that things could be better. Greg Combet, still basking in his post Bastard Boys ABC jerk off session of three and a half years ago, has declared a need for a return to core Labor values. Fan-fucking-tastic, lets do it. That sounds great. Parties should stand for something, right? So lets stand up and do it, for something! YAY SOMETHING!
People always claim they want parties to stand for something, particularly Oppositions. But do they? Does that ever work? If that were true then the small target strategy position occupied by the majority of Oppositions would have been dumped decades ago. When Rudd won the 2007 election, he stood for not being John Howard, when Howard won in 1996, he stood for not being Paul Keating etcetera. Governments love to be known retrospectively as 'reformist', because that is code for 'achieved something', but they do not necessarily win Government by preaching reform. They win it by being competent, standing still and allowing the other mob to run themselves into the ground. Governments stand for governing, Oppositions stand for being in government. What occurs in between is completely dependent on the public, who are so filled with trepidation, that second terms are almost a forgone conclusion.
As time goes on the Major parties bleed votes to minor parties like The Greens, because they do stand for something. This usually does not last. In 2010 The Greens won 11.7% in the House of Representatives and 13.7% in the Senate, because they stood for something. In 1990, the Australian Democrats won 11.2% and 12.6% respectively for the same reason, but as soon as they got to the big table and had to put their name on decisions their vote went south. Quickly.
The Greens are not the Democrats, but they are at the big table. And we'll see very quickly what, and how much, people want them to stand for.
In the weeks following the election people have spoken of Labor like they are in Opposition, like they are once again in the political wilderness, wherever the fuck that is, probably somewhere in South Australia.
However strange or unfair as that may be, as sure as higher socio-economic tax avoidance and everyone's inevitable lonely death, the Labor Party are once again having a good old soul-search. Young up-and-comers are providing hints that things could be better. Greg Combet, still basking in his post Bastard Boys ABC jerk off session of three and a half years ago, has declared a need for a return to core Labor values. Fan-fucking-tastic, lets do it. That sounds great. Parties should stand for something, right? So lets stand up and do it, for something! YAY SOMETHING!
People always claim they want parties to stand for something, particularly Oppositions. But do they? Does that ever work? If that were true then the small target strategy position occupied by the majority of Oppositions would have been dumped decades ago. When Rudd won the 2007 election, he stood for not being John Howard, when Howard won in 1996, he stood for not being Paul Keating etcetera. Governments love to be known retrospectively as 'reformist', because that is code for 'achieved something', but they do not necessarily win Government by preaching reform. They win it by being competent, standing still and allowing the other mob to run themselves into the ground. Governments stand for governing, Oppositions stand for being in government. What occurs in between is completely dependent on the public, who are so filled with trepidation, that second terms are almost a forgone conclusion.
As time goes on the Major parties bleed votes to minor parties like The Greens, because they do stand for something. This usually does not last. In 2010 The Greens won 11.7% in the House of Representatives and 13.7% in the Senate, because they stood for something. In 1990, the Australian Democrats won 11.2% and 12.6% respectively for the same reason, but as soon as they got to the big table and had to put their name on decisions their vote went south. Quickly.
The Greens are not the Democrats, but they are at the big table. And we'll see very quickly what, and how much, people want them to stand for.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
A United State of Election
It's times like these that I enjoy not being American. The current Midterm Elections are at the same time shockingly depressing and thoroughly unsurprising. It has been almost two years since Barack Obama took office, and America is still in trouble. Not good enough say the voters of America, who have promptly put back in power the people who got them in trouble in the first place.
What's worse, the misleadingly named Tea Party is the growing force in American politics, and moderate Republicans are quickly disappearing from the political landscape. There has been a Tea Party tidal wave which will end in a wet slap on the forehead of anything that is decent.
It was obvious that the hype surrounding Obama was overblown. It was like people forgot that this was politics they were taking about. He's not a God. One man cannot pull an entire nation out of an economic black hole of its own creation, reverse egotistical cultural malaise in months, not years, no matter how good his speeches are. People got disappointed very quickly when miracles did not occur immediately. Thus the Democrats have lost control because people could not be bothered voting for them. Used to instant gratification, they were disgusted when it was denied them.
This is the sort of thing that happens when the nation is kept in a near constant state of 'Election'.
In the US there is a Presidential Election every four years, which also includes House, Senate, Mayoral and Gubernatorial elections. In between these are Midterm elections, where every house bar the white one is involved. Prior to these proper elections, the major parties hold primaries, in which candidates are voted on by registered members of the parties, and any registered independents who lean that way. These tend to occur in the six months leading up to the election in question. So at the very least, the electioneering goes on for a year before hand. Recently it's been getting longer and longer, with every second of it picked apart and analysed by 24 hour cable news cuntery. Every poll means something, every misspoken word a disaster, every speech broadcasted all the time, constant attack ads paid for by some unscrupulous bastard, constant pleading for money, more money, WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY.
You can see why some people just say "fuck it, I'm not voting"? It's all too much. No wonder nothing happens. At all times, a large amount of people are trying to get re-elected. Everyone's playing defence.
Can you imagine an Australian campaign going for over a year? There would not be enough rope for everyone to hang themselves. People's life-force would ebb and disappear into a fog of bullshit. We'll get there in the end because it's already started. The official election campaign may only go for six weeks, but the unofficial campaign starts months before, and gets earlier every time. We now have two 24 hour news channels, and there are plenty of arseholes queuing up for both. Campaigns are becoming more negative, less informative and nastier.
America is our future, so watch, and get depressed.
What's worse, the misleadingly named Tea Party is the growing force in American politics, and moderate Republicans are quickly disappearing from the political landscape. There has been a Tea Party tidal wave which will end in a wet slap on the forehead of anything that is decent.
It was obvious that the hype surrounding Obama was overblown. It was like people forgot that this was politics they were taking about. He's not a God. One man cannot pull an entire nation out of an economic black hole of its own creation, reverse egotistical cultural malaise in months, not years, no matter how good his speeches are. People got disappointed very quickly when miracles did not occur immediately. Thus the Democrats have lost control because people could not be bothered voting for them. Used to instant gratification, they were disgusted when it was denied them.
This is the sort of thing that happens when the nation is kept in a near constant state of 'Election'.
In the US there is a Presidential Election every four years, which also includes House, Senate, Mayoral and Gubernatorial elections. In between these are Midterm elections, where every house bar the white one is involved. Prior to these proper elections, the major parties hold primaries, in which candidates are voted on by registered members of the parties, and any registered independents who lean that way. These tend to occur in the six months leading up to the election in question. So at the very least, the electioneering goes on for a year before hand. Recently it's been getting longer and longer, with every second of it picked apart and analysed by 24 hour cable news cuntery. Every poll means something, every misspoken word a disaster, every speech broadcasted all the time, constant attack ads paid for by some unscrupulous bastard, constant pleading for money, more money, WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY.
You can see why some people just say "fuck it, I'm not voting"? It's all too much. No wonder nothing happens. At all times, a large amount of people are trying to get re-elected. Everyone's playing defence.
Can you imagine an Australian campaign going for over a year? There would not be enough rope for everyone to hang themselves. People's life-force would ebb and disappear into a fog of bullshit. We'll get there in the end because it's already started. The official election campaign may only go for six weeks, but the unofficial campaign starts months before, and gets earlier every time. We now have two 24 hour news channels, and there are plenty of arseholes queuing up for both. Campaigns are becoming more negative, less informative and nastier.
America is our future, so watch, and get depressed.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Taming of the Shoe
Who throws a shoe? I mean really. You've got the old man sitting there, he's on a show called 'Q and A' which means if you ask him a question he has to answer it. You could have asked him anything you want. You could've stayed up the night before and concocted a question so pointed, so insightfully lancing, that the boil on the arse of society that is this old man would have burst live on national television. There would have been applause in the yawning gap between the end of your verbal bullet and the stammery spluttering answer of a man defeated by the weight of your profound inquiry.
Instead you threw a shoe.
You didn't even throw it well.
And to ask the prompt return of your shoes following their rather loopy expedition across the room in the general direction of John Winston Howard just smacks of lameness. It was kind of sad, like you just realised "I needed those shoes, I really did."
I'm sure people will talk about whether such acts are an effective protest, maybe they are sometimes. Certainly when an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at then US President George W. Bush (a far better exhibition of shoe throwing in my opinion), he captured the growing frustration of a great deal of people with the war, the death and the injustice of it all. It was part of a greater debate about the war, it was at an extreme sure, but it was not isolated.
Throwing shoes at Howard however, three years out of power while he's attempting to protect his legacy on the ABC, does not achieve anything in my mind. In fact, I think Howard would find such an act far easier to deal with than a well-worded question addressing the many, many issues of the Iraq war. The nature of the act allowed Howard to dismiss it, and the reasons for it. It put the audience on his side and the protestor was roundly booed by other members of the audience, including fellow Howard detractors. What we're all reading today is 'man throws shoes at Howard', not 'David Hicks questions Howard on Guantanamo' or 'Howard defends actions in middle east'. Those are better things to be talking about than the merits of throwing footwear at former leaders.
Hell, I've seen more commentary on the quality of this guy's shoe-throwing ability than I have anything on the Howard book's defence of the war. The protestor said he wanted international attention to make his point known. He'd failed before the first shoe dropped.
Instead you threw a shoe.
You didn't even throw it well.
And to ask the prompt return of your shoes following their rather loopy expedition across the room in the general direction of John Winston Howard just smacks of lameness. It was kind of sad, like you just realised "I needed those shoes, I really did."
I'm sure people will talk about whether such acts are an effective protest, maybe they are sometimes. Certainly when an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at then US President George W. Bush (a far better exhibition of shoe throwing in my opinion), he captured the growing frustration of a great deal of people with the war, the death and the injustice of it all. It was part of a greater debate about the war, it was at an extreme sure, but it was not isolated.
Throwing shoes at Howard however, three years out of power while he's attempting to protect his legacy on the ABC, does not achieve anything in my mind. In fact, I think Howard would find such an act far easier to deal with than a well-worded question addressing the many, many issues of the Iraq war. The nature of the act allowed Howard to dismiss it, and the reasons for it. It put the audience on his side and the protestor was roundly booed by other members of the audience, including fellow Howard detractors. What we're all reading today is 'man throws shoes at Howard', not 'David Hicks questions Howard on Guantanamo' or 'Howard defends actions in middle east'. Those are better things to be talking about than the merits of throwing footwear at former leaders.
Hell, I've seen more commentary on the quality of this guy's shoe-throwing ability than I have anything on the Howard book's defence of the war. The protestor said he wanted international attention to make his point known. He'd failed before the first shoe dropped.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Pulling Your Legacy
I think it can generally be acknowledged that arguments between individuals, conducted after a particular incident or period, as to who was right and who was wrong during said incident or period are boring. The fact that I mentally switched off halfway through that sentence is testament to the boringness of such situations. No one likes the sound of people bitching at each other over things that are past and unchangeable. Its pointlessness is amplified by how inevitable it is, particularly when the result of the incident/period is ambiguous and the high ground on the subject is therefore up for grabs.
When these arguments take place between retired politicians, usually former leaders, a new level of boredom is achieved as the nobody-cares pissing contest spills into the media and fouls the pages of already foul rags. Again, like so many things in politics, all sides are at fault and have recent examples.
Six or so months ago it was Hawke and Keating going at it. Not so subtle jibes were directed at each other's supposed mental states during the period in question, both desperately jockeying for credit from the successes and eagerly dolling out blame for the cock-ups. The jibes all had notes of warning in them, two people who obviously know many secrets about each other, threatening to reveal all in hardcover for $49.95. A book started the argument, and no doubt a future book will continue it.
Now it's Howard and Costello's turn to wop them out and cross swords, fighting over a legacy no one but the sad and loserish will take note of. The whole idea of building a legacy post government is childish and inherently egotistical. It conjures the image old men, sitting together at a retirement home for the politically insane, routinely soiling themselves while trading barbs about each other's fiscal discipline. Why this has to happen in the media is beyond me.
There is also the obligatory controversial crack at someone who was not expecting it. A cheap-ass blindside of someone everyone presumed you liked to add a bit of spice to book sales. I'm not particularly offended that Howard has claimed that Jeff Kennett was secretly a union-loving, commie-sympathising jar of wet-ones, but why has this been brought up other than to start a fight that produces free media for Johnny's book? Well for starters it's bullshit, so who cares? Controversy sells, so make some.
In ten years' time it will be Rudd and Gillard going at it, each blaming the other for Peter Garrett and who almost let Tony Abbott become Prime Minister. The only winners are Harper Collins and Random House.
When these arguments take place between retired politicians, usually former leaders, a new level of boredom is achieved as the nobody-cares pissing contest spills into the media and fouls the pages of already foul rags. Again, like so many things in politics, all sides are at fault and have recent examples.
Six or so months ago it was Hawke and Keating going at it. Not so subtle jibes were directed at each other's supposed mental states during the period in question, both desperately jockeying for credit from the successes and eagerly dolling out blame for the cock-ups. The jibes all had notes of warning in them, two people who obviously know many secrets about each other, threatening to reveal all in hardcover for $49.95. A book started the argument, and no doubt a future book will continue it.
Now it's Howard and Costello's turn to wop them out and cross swords, fighting over a legacy no one but the sad and loserish will take note of. The whole idea of building a legacy post government is childish and inherently egotistical. It conjures the image old men, sitting together at a retirement home for the politically insane, routinely soiling themselves while trading barbs about each other's fiscal discipline. Why this has to happen in the media is beyond me.
There is also the obligatory controversial crack at someone who was not expecting it. A cheap-ass blindside of someone everyone presumed you liked to add a bit of spice to book sales. I'm not particularly offended that Howard has claimed that Jeff Kennett was secretly a union-loving, commie-sympathising jar of wet-ones, but why has this been brought up other than to start a fight that produces free media for Johnny's book? Well for starters it's bullshit, so who cares? Controversy sells, so make some.
In ten years' time it will be Rudd and Gillard going at it, each blaming the other for Peter Garrett and who almost let Tony Abbott become Prime Minister. The only winners are Harper Collins and Random House.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Once Upon a Gaffe
Once in a while, the façade of modern political theatre comes crashing down in such a fashion that everyone just stares at each other awkwardly, waiting for the moment to pass. Of course, then there's the laughter, usually from the side who has just had something of unimaginable idiocy gifted to them by the other side.
Joe Hockey got up this morning and decided he was going to make a call for the Parliament to legislate a control on interest rates. How that would happen is unclear, the point is he said it, and it's presumably Coalition policy.
Meanwhile Don Randall got up this morning and decided that he was going to do a Parliament doorstop interview. This is where MPs 'accidentally' bump into the press on their way into Parliament via a particular door. A door that always has press outside of it, because of all the MPs they keep bumping into. Anyway, after calling into question the sexuality of the national broadcaster, Mr Randall took a question about the proposed policy of controlling interest rates. A very astute reporter asked the question without mentioning that it came from Joe Hockey, and promptly received reward in the form of a horrendous brain-fart from old Donny.
Randall thought the idea was shit, and he said so. In fact he said it was one of 'their lunatic fringe-type ideas'. Their ideas? Who's they, who's he talking about? The Australian Greens he says. Oh dear.
You have just put your foot in your mouth, and then shot yourself in the same foot, therefore killing you.
Randall just assumed that what he perceived as a ridiculous idea could only have come from the Greens, and jumped in with both feet. No doubt Gillard, Swan and Co. must have been splitting their sides. Joe Hockey must be furious, not only has he been bagged by one of his own, he's been compared to the Greens, surely the gravest of insults you could level at a conservative, wet or not.
Randall has since tried to cover-up his cock-up by promptly talking out of his arse. He has claimed he was speaking of something else. Something the Greens were doing, but something that had absolutely nothing to do with the question he was asked. An obviously horse shit back pedal brought upon by extreme internal-party rib-poking.
All this woeful episode reveals is the utter meaninglessness of most political attacks. It doesn't matter what the idea is, as the names and parties are interchangeable in any attack depending on who's in government and who's in opposition. A lunatic idea in government is a fantastic idea in opposition. Why is this the case? Because when it comes to these sort of arguments the only message you have to get across 'us good, them bad'. You either accept something or dismiss it, based completely on where it came from.
Fuck the facts, who said it?
Don Randall certainly wishes he had said nothing at all.
Joe Hockey got up this morning and decided he was going to make a call for the Parliament to legislate a control on interest rates. How that would happen is unclear, the point is he said it, and it's presumably Coalition policy.
Meanwhile Don Randall got up this morning and decided that he was going to do a Parliament doorstop interview. This is where MPs 'accidentally' bump into the press on their way into Parliament via a particular door. A door that always has press outside of it, because of all the MPs they keep bumping into. Anyway, after calling into question the sexuality of the national broadcaster, Mr Randall took a question about the proposed policy of controlling interest rates. A very astute reporter asked the question without mentioning that it came from Joe Hockey, and promptly received reward in the form of a horrendous brain-fart from old Donny.
Randall thought the idea was shit, and he said so. In fact he said it was one of 'their lunatic fringe-type ideas'. Their ideas? Who's they, who's he talking about? The Australian Greens he says. Oh dear.
You have just put your foot in your mouth, and then shot yourself in the same foot, therefore killing you.
Randall just assumed that what he perceived as a ridiculous idea could only have come from the Greens, and jumped in with both feet. No doubt Gillard, Swan and Co. must have been splitting their sides. Joe Hockey must be furious, not only has he been bagged by one of his own, he's been compared to the Greens, surely the gravest of insults you could level at a conservative, wet or not.
Randall has since tried to cover-up his cock-up by promptly talking out of his arse. He has claimed he was speaking of something else. Something the Greens were doing, but something that had absolutely nothing to do with the question he was asked. An obviously horse shit back pedal brought upon by extreme internal-party rib-poking.
All this woeful episode reveals is the utter meaninglessness of most political attacks. It doesn't matter what the idea is, as the names and parties are interchangeable in any attack depending on who's in government and who's in opposition. A lunatic idea in government is a fantastic idea in opposition. Why is this the case? Because when it comes to these sort of arguments the only message you have to get across 'us good, them bad'. You either accept something or dismiss it, based completely on where it came from.
Fuck the facts, who said it?
Don Randall certainly wishes he had said nothing at all.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Getting Burnt in a Water Fight
Water is the current hot button issue in Australian politics. It doesn't have the moral outrage vs. moral panic of the asylum seeker issue, it doesn't have the national security implications of the Afghanistan, but what it does have is a bunch of sweary farmers going ape shit and burning government reports at public meetings. I suppose that's entertaining, but it's mainly because the people on the government side of things have absolutely no idea how to deal with the insane levels of feralness the people to whom they are attempting to explain themselves are exhibiting. They sort of just shuffle their feet, claim to agree with the crowd and get the fuck out of there.
I suppose that's what I would do as well. I mean saying "We're taking this as a guide and will take all factors into consideration" does not really compete with "Fuck you, we will burn you and your treasonous report. You killed my farm, prepare to die." I know that they're angry because they think their communities are going to die, and that's a legitimate fear to have, but I think that they went from normal citizen to report burning-effigy making-farm warrior rather quickly. From what I gather, it happened within hours of the report's release. How can a reasonable debate occur when public meetings involve an over-flowing swear jar and the smoudering remains of the issue at hand? How is anyone going to learn anything?
As the government types mumbled unconvincingly, the report is a guide. It's not policy, and it was commissioned to find out what would be required to save the river system. Interestingly, what was lost in all the smoke and noise was that a significant percentage of the cuts that are recommended in the report have already been made. In some cases, they're more than halfway through the process. Maybe the government didn't explain this properly, or maybe no one could hear them above the F-ing Cs and the crackle of the report fire, whatever.
In any case I think everyone should agree to just take a deep breath and read the report before people go burning something they themselves just recently photocopied. Do you really have to burn it? Read it, at least, make sure that no one else wants to read it, and then, if you're still angry, go to an area that contains no other flammable material, make sure you have a fire extinguisher on hand, and burn the report to your heart's content in the privacy of your own home.
The fact of the matter is that the irrigation party has been over for some time, and the cuts will have to continue until we hit a sustainable level. Going all pyro and screaming like an akubra wearing banshee, unless it's some sort of rain dance, is not going to help anyone.
I suppose that's what I would do as well. I mean saying "We're taking this as a guide and will take all factors into consideration" does not really compete with "Fuck you, we will burn you and your treasonous report. You killed my farm, prepare to die." I know that they're angry because they think their communities are going to die, and that's a legitimate fear to have, but I think that they went from normal citizen to report burning-effigy making-farm warrior rather quickly. From what I gather, it happened within hours of the report's release. How can a reasonable debate occur when public meetings involve an over-flowing swear jar and the smoudering remains of the issue at hand? How is anyone going to learn anything?
As the government types mumbled unconvincingly, the report is a guide. It's not policy, and it was commissioned to find out what would be required to save the river system. Interestingly, what was lost in all the smoke and noise was that a significant percentage of the cuts that are recommended in the report have already been made. In some cases, they're more than halfway through the process. Maybe the government didn't explain this properly, or maybe no one could hear them above the F-ing Cs and the crackle of the report fire, whatever.
In any case I think everyone should agree to just take a deep breath and read the report before people go burning something they themselves just recently photocopied. Do you really have to burn it? Read it, at least, make sure that no one else wants to read it, and then, if you're still angry, go to an area that contains no other flammable material, make sure you have a fire extinguisher on hand, and burn the report to your heart's content in the privacy of your own home.
The fact of the matter is that the irrigation party has been over for some time, and the cuts will have to continue until we hit a sustainable level. Going all pyro and screaming like an akubra wearing banshee, unless it's some sort of rain dance, is not going to help anyone.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Ultimate Warringah
Everything has returned to normal; Australia is demolishing third world nations at a sporting event only we care about, the Victorian Police are sending each other racist emails and the Australian political media has been sidetracked for a week by an ultimately bullshit story.
The Gillard-baited-Abbott-Afghanistan-jetlag-Defence-refuses-action-man-embedding 'scandal' is a classic case of a nothing story taking up a week of our time because…well because everything else that's going on is boring. And the end result was Abbott grabbing an assault rifle and screaming "FOR WARRINGAH, AYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY", so yeah, job done.
In any case it's a petty, meaningless argument in which it does not matter who is wrong and who is right, it's just something to talk about for a while. Gillard was cheeky in saying she invited Abbott to Afghanistan, Abbott was stupid for saying he didn't want to be jetlagged, Gillard went for the cheap point about caring for troops blah blah, someone was self righteous about safety, Abbott goes all action-man, Defence says 'No Mr. Abbott, you can not lead a patrol in the dead of night with the help of a plucky Afghan child and take down the evil Soviet General keeping a proud people imprisoned in a communist hell hole'. You know, the standard back and forth bullshit.
When this story finally dies and something else takes over, it will take less than a week for it to be completely forgotten. It will not even rate a mention in the inevitable moody 7.30 Report political montage at the end of the year. Seriously, sometimes I struggle to be interested in this shit. How do journalists do it?
Really, I want to know. It must be soul destroying, because everyone knows it’s just a game. The result is a complete forgone conclusion. No wonder people just flip the paper over to the back page.
And yes I realise the hypocrisy of bitching about journalists writing about this at the same time as writing about it myself, but in other news: Fuck you.
The Gillard-baited-Abbott-Afghanistan-jetlag-Defence-refuses-action-man-embedding 'scandal' is a classic case of a nothing story taking up a week of our time because…well because everything else that's going on is boring. And the end result was Abbott grabbing an assault rifle and screaming "FOR WARRINGAH, AYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY", so yeah, job done.
In any case it's a petty, meaningless argument in which it does not matter who is wrong and who is right, it's just something to talk about for a while. Gillard was cheeky in saying she invited Abbott to Afghanistan, Abbott was stupid for saying he didn't want to be jetlagged, Gillard went for the cheap point about caring for troops blah blah, someone was self righteous about safety, Abbott goes all action-man, Defence says 'No Mr. Abbott, you can not lead a patrol in the dead of night with the help of a plucky Afghan child and take down the evil Soviet General keeping a proud people imprisoned in a communist hell hole'. You know, the standard back and forth bullshit.
When this story finally dies and something else takes over, it will take less than a week for it to be completely forgotten. It will not even rate a mention in the inevitable moody 7.30 Report political montage at the end of the year. Seriously, sometimes I struggle to be interested in this shit. How do journalists do it?
Really, I want to know. It must be soul destroying, because everyone knows it’s just a game. The result is a complete forgone conclusion. No wonder people just flip the paper over to the back page.
And yes I realise the hypocrisy of bitching about journalists writing about this at the same time as writing about it myself, but in other news: Fuck you.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Grow a Pair
The 'bat and ball' politics of the Opposition in the first week of parliament has had the affect of exposing the public to terms they usually never hear. To most people, the phrase 'pairing arrangements' is more likely to refer to who Kate Richie and Ray Meagre are Morris dancing with on Dancing With the Stars, or the subtleties of a Danoz steak knife collection they're thinking of slamming on the plastic, rather than the current voting situation in the Federal Parliament. It's not that public education on such matters is bad, it's just that the media and public's insistence on having such things explained in one sentence, leads to a rather simplistic education to say the least.
So, if you'd like a single sentence on this issue, here it is: Refusing to honour the traditional pairing arrangements is the most pissy act of fucktitude Abbott has ever pulled out of his 'How to be a Complete Cowardly Bastard' handbook.
Now, I'm not saying that this hasn't happened before, or that it is beyond the lowest act of any other political party, but let's face it: this is Abbott taking his bat and ball, going home, and crying into the groin of his favourite John Howard stuffed toy. It will not achieve anything other than slightly annoying the people who defeated him. He came so close, but he couldn't get over the line, "So fuck your stupid jerky parliament club for jerks, I didn't want to be PM anyway because you're all unfair poo poos, I'm gonna go write for Quadrant, then you'll see"
All this will do is slow everything down. MPs will give fewer speeches, attend less public events and spend less time on Ministerial business. The Opposition has already won one division. Was it through successfully wooing the independents? No. Was it able to convince a Government backbencher to switch sides? No. Tanya Plibersek was absent because she is less than two weeks away from having a baby and the Opposition refused to give her a pair. If you ever wondered just how committed Tony Abbott was to maternity leave and women in the work place then there it is.
Take that new paradigm.
So, if you'd like a single sentence on this issue, here it is: Refusing to honour the traditional pairing arrangements is the most pissy act of fucktitude Abbott has ever pulled out of his 'How to be a Complete Cowardly Bastard' handbook.
Now, I'm not saying that this hasn't happened before, or that it is beyond the lowest act of any other political party, but let's face it: this is Abbott taking his bat and ball, going home, and crying into the groin of his favourite John Howard stuffed toy. It will not achieve anything other than slightly annoying the people who defeated him. He came so close, but he couldn't get over the line, "So fuck your stupid jerky parliament club for jerks, I didn't want to be PM anyway because you're all unfair poo poos, I'm gonna go write for Quadrant, then you'll see"
All this will do is slow everything down. MPs will give fewer speeches, attend less public events and spend less time on Ministerial business. The Opposition has already won one division. Was it through successfully wooing the independents? No. Was it able to convince a Government backbencher to switch sides? No. Tanya Plibersek was absent because she is less than two weeks away from having a baby and the Opposition refused to give her a pair. If you ever wondered just how committed Tony Abbott was to maternity leave and women in the work place then there it is.
Take that new paradigm.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Kiss My Paradigm
It’s day one of the 'new paradigm', and it looks and sounds very similar to the previous 'paradigm'. There are some slight differences, like everyone using the word 'paradigm', but otherwise it doesn't seem that ground-breaking. So ignoring for a moment the use of a buzzword network executives use to sound intelligent, what does everyone actually mean by the phrase 'new paradigm'?
Essentially it seems to mean that members of parliament will have less scope to be bastards. If you get asked a question, you may actually (but still probably won’t) have to answer it. There will (won't) be less interjections. Answers are 'limited' to four minutes, questions are 'limited' to 45 seconds and interest will be limited to a whole lot less. All this 'new paradigm' seems to amount to is a half-hearted plea for MPs to stop acting like arse-clowns in parliament. If that's what it is then scrap it right now, because a) it won't happen and b) if it did, parliament would lose its only point of interest.
Sure, people love to complain about their MPs acting like self-centred five-year-olds, hurling mud-pies at other kids they secretly like but that doesn't mean they want it to stop. They love it. They love it in the pants.
If an opposition MP asked a straight-forward, single-part question and a minister then stood up and answered it directly, in a single sentence, what would that achieve? Accountability in government? Improved democracy? Happy-smiley-love times? No, none of those things. It would result in a boring-as-batshit snooze-fest that would kill off any chance of anyone being interested in politics ever again.
No rude interjections or snarky quips? For fucks sake, that's all they have. Conflict is all they have. What would the media report? 'Minister Answers Question in Orderly Manner: Crossfloor Compliments Abound'. Boring. We want: 'PM Shouted Down by Coked-Out Backbencher' or 'Minister Arse-Raped by MPs Tax Zinger'. If it's not debauched, ridiculous, meaningless juvenile pathetic nonsense then we would not be interested.
And it would not be parliament.
Essentially it seems to mean that members of parliament will have less scope to be bastards. If you get asked a question, you may actually (but still probably won’t) have to answer it. There will (won't) be less interjections. Answers are 'limited' to four minutes, questions are 'limited' to 45 seconds and interest will be limited to a whole lot less. All this 'new paradigm' seems to amount to is a half-hearted plea for MPs to stop acting like arse-clowns in parliament. If that's what it is then scrap it right now, because a) it won't happen and b) if it did, parliament would lose its only point of interest.
Sure, people love to complain about their MPs acting like self-centred five-year-olds, hurling mud-pies at other kids they secretly like but that doesn't mean they want it to stop. They love it. They love it in the pants.
If an opposition MP asked a straight-forward, single-part question and a minister then stood up and answered it directly, in a single sentence, what would that achieve? Accountability in government? Improved democracy? Happy-smiley-love times? No, none of those things. It would result in a boring-as-batshit snooze-fest that would kill off any chance of anyone being interested in politics ever again.
No rude interjections or snarky quips? For fucks sake, that's all they have. Conflict is all they have. What would the media report? 'Minister Answers Question in Orderly Manner: Crossfloor Compliments Abound'. Boring. We want: 'PM Shouted Down by Coked-Out Backbencher' or 'Minister Arse-Raped by MPs Tax Zinger'. If it's not debauched, ridiculous, meaningless juvenile pathetic nonsense then we would not be interested.
And it would not be parliament.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Oakeshott Down
On the 7th of September 2010, Rob Oakeshott took the podium, and with a sort of stilted woodenness you would usually expect from a cricketer in a vitamin commercial, commenced a speech that will be remembered as one of the most infuriating and repetitive of all time. It was like a skipping record at a radio station where everyone is dead; you either had to wait until the record finished of its own accord or until someone found the corpses draped over packs of the icy-cold-cans-of-coke.
For 15 minutes the nation's media and public were quietly swearing under their breath, begging for the one sentence. The one sentence that would mean that they could go home and forget any of this ever happened.
The most annoying thing about it was that everyone knew what he was going to say, but we had to hear him say it. And didn’t he enjoy making you listen to all that dross beforehand? Perhaps he realised that this was the last time that anyone in the major parties, the media, or the public would listen to him. So on he went, banging on about regional Australia and his 'line call-points decision-blah-blah', like a student padding a debate speech so they can at least get the warning bell.
It seemed appropriate then that Rob Oakeshott decided to run for Speaker of the House of Representatives. He certainly provided a good example of his ability to speak. After dragging the parties into an agreement over parliamentary reforms, it also made sense that he be the one to enforce them. That agreement seems to have lasted all of five minutes.
Of course, once the Liberals had lost the chance at government, why would they stick to Oakeshott's rules? Did anyone really think that would happen? Now there's talk of there being a Liberal Speaker, I very much doubt that will happen either.
The 'New Era' bullshit has been flushed within the first two weeks of the new term. We've come straight back to the political manoeuvring everyone knew would return. Don't believe the arguments about the constitution, as people are perfectly prepared to take a dump on the constitution when it suits them. This is about numbers and how thin the Opposition can keep the Government's majority.
Parliament is right back where it used to be: smack bang in the middle of arse-hat town. The two and a half weeks of political limbo has amounted to three-eights of two-fifths of sweet fuck all.
For 15 minutes the nation's media and public were quietly swearing under their breath, begging for the one sentence. The one sentence that would mean that they could go home and forget any of this ever happened.
The most annoying thing about it was that everyone knew what he was going to say, but we had to hear him say it. And didn’t he enjoy making you listen to all that dross beforehand? Perhaps he realised that this was the last time that anyone in the major parties, the media, or the public would listen to him. So on he went, banging on about regional Australia and his 'line call-points decision-blah-blah', like a student padding a debate speech so they can at least get the warning bell.
It seemed appropriate then that Rob Oakeshott decided to run for Speaker of the House of Representatives. He certainly provided a good example of his ability to speak. After dragging the parties into an agreement over parliamentary reforms, it also made sense that he be the one to enforce them. That agreement seems to have lasted all of five minutes.
Of course, once the Liberals had lost the chance at government, why would they stick to Oakeshott's rules? Did anyone really think that would happen? Now there's talk of there being a Liberal Speaker, I very much doubt that will happen either.
The 'New Era' bullshit has been flushed within the first two weeks of the new term. We've come straight back to the political manoeuvring everyone knew would return. Don't believe the arguments about the constitution, as people are perfectly prepared to take a dump on the constitution when it suits them. This is about numbers and how thin the Opposition can keep the Government's majority.
Parliament is right back where it used to be: smack bang in the middle of arse-hat town. The two and a half weeks of political limbo has amounted to three-eights of two-fifths of sweet fuck all.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Australia's Fattest Loser
The new Government is almost in town. They have reshuffled, repositioned, rebranded, like rearranged deck chairs on a boat where nothing interesting ever happens. A few have left, a few have just arrived. Will anyone notice? Probably not.
Bill Shorten has reward for all his tireless self promotion during the Beaconsfield Mine collapse, Greg Combet ascends further, still riding on the relative success of Bastard Boys. Mark Arbib has…umm 'increased responsibilities', what these are I'm not sure, but his promotion has certainly 'increased' my 'gag reflex'. Rob Oakeshott has rejected the offer a Ministry, it seems Gillard saw how long he could bang on about meaningless shit at his press conference the week before and thought he'd be perfect.
Whatever the machinations, whatever bullshit factional sack tickling, we have a Government. Unsurprisingly it only took 24 hours before someone uttered the word: illegitimate.
"This Government is ILLEGITIMATE. They have literally stolen government from us" was the gist of Joe Hockey's protest, his lip quivering like a half eaten Mars bar in his sausage-like fingers. Of course this ignores that they would have formed government in exactly the same way, with the same independents, with the same horseshit promises, and with the same offers of ministries. But no "THEY ARE ILLEGITIMATE AND WE WON THE ELECTION."
Well you didn't you fat self righteous git, so fuck off back to North Sydney and honk on to a cheese sausage filled with the bitterness of opposition. And if it is somehow possible to look behind you, do so, because Malcolm Turbull is after your job.
There is nothing I cannot stand more than the pathetic bleating of a grown man denied power. This is how the people voted; this is what their representatives have decided, so suck it up bitch.
You'll get your turn in the trough soon enough.
Bill Shorten has reward for all his tireless self promotion during the Beaconsfield Mine collapse, Greg Combet ascends further, still riding on the relative success of Bastard Boys. Mark Arbib has…umm 'increased responsibilities', what these are I'm not sure, but his promotion has certainly 'increased' my 'gag reflex'. Rob Oakeshott has rejected the offer a Ministry, it seems Gillard saw how long he could bang on about meaningless shit at his press conference the week before and thought he'd be perfect.
Whatever the machinations, whatever bullshit factional sack tickling, we have a Government. Unsurprisingly it only took 24 hours before someone uttered the word: illegitimate.
"This Government is ILLEGITIMATE. They have literally stolen government from us" was the gist of Joe Hockey's protest, his lip quivering like a half eaten Mars bar in his sausage-like fingers. Of course this ignores that they would have formed government in exactly the same way, with the same independents, with the same horseshit promises, and with the same offers of ministries. But no "THEY ARE ILLEGITIMATE AND WE WON THE ELECTION."
Well you didn't you fat self righteous git, so fuck off back to North Sydney and honk on to a cheese sausage filled with the bitterness of opposition. And if it is somehow possible to look behind you, do so, because Malcolm Turbull is after your job.
There is nothing I cannot stand more than the pathetic bleating of a grown man denied power. This is how the people voted; this is what their representatives have decided, so suck it up bitch.
You'll get your turn in the trough soon enough.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Glutton for Disappointment
Finished. Complete. Over. A five week election campaign of meaningless sludge and a two and a half week wrangle up the greasy pole to government. For weeks I've been praying to a God I do not believe in for it to end, and yet…
Now that it's over, I find myself romanticising over just how horrible it really was. I mean, it was fucked. Full of bullshit, disingenuous manipulations, promotions of xenophobia, dilution of important policy, meaningless polls, pathetic journalism (aside from the usual suspects), swinging voter morons on A Current Affair, PR drivel, debates consisting entirely of buzzwords, empty grandstanding and yet…somehow mesmerising, addictive, and all consuming.
I'm obviously a masochist. While I sometimes despise what politics in Australia has become and almost all its participants, I can't turn away. Like that episode of Survivor that you accidentally catch at 11.30pm at night, where you think you should just go to bed and then suddenly you are yelling at the TV: "VOTE THAT FUCKER OFF, HE'S THE ONE WHO STOLE YOUR RICE."
I flit between starting political discussions and avoiding them. I can't watch the news but I can't turn it off. I keep coming back for more, and I keep getting slapped in the face. I'm like a pathetic stalker, constantly rejected by an obsession he despises. I hate it, but I love to hate it.
One day it will completely tear out my soul. I will be a shell, watching only Masterchef, eating a thin gruel microwaved in identical plastic containers and drooling on my lazyboy armchair, applauding food I will never eat. It's just a matter of time.
Now that it's over, I find myself romanticising over just how horrible it really was. I mean, it was fucked. Full of bullshit, disingenuous manipulations, promotions of xenophobia, dilution of important policy, meaningless polls, pathetic journalism (aside from the usual suspects), swinging voter morons on A Current Affair, PR drivel, debates consisting entirely of buzzwords, empty grandstanding and yet…somehow mesmerising, addictive, and all consuming.
I'm obviously a masochist. While I sometimes despise what politics in Australia has become and almost all its participants, I can't turn away. Like that episode of Survivor that you accidentally catch at 11.30pm at night, where you think you should just go to bed and then suddenly you are yelling at the TV: "VOTE THAT FUCKER OFF, HE'S THE ONE WHO STOLE YOUR RICE."
I flit between starting political discussions and avoiding them. I can't watch the news but I can't turn it off. I keep coming back for more, and I keep getting slapped in the face. I'm like a pathetic stalker, constantly rejected by an obsession he despises. I hate it, but I love to hate it.
One day it will completely tear out my soul. I will be a shell, watching only Masterchef, eating a thin gruel microwaved in identical plastic containers and drooling on my lazyboy armchair, applauding food I will never eat. It's just a matter of time.
Monday, September 6, 2010
A 'New' Era of Politics
I'm twiddling my thumbs, I seriously cannot believe this thing is still going, but soon I will know. I will know, it will be over, and normalcy will return. There was a boat arrival during all this, see how no one noticed? This is because the public are no longer in control, there's no one to scare anymore.
There is, I hear the parties say. In fact there are three of them, but they're not scared of boats. But what can we scare them with? Polls? Most people are afraid of polls, particularly when they're recent, or upcoming. They say the polls aren't swaying them, but they probably are, let’s keep talking about the polls.
Hang on, there's a poll out saying the public don't want us…shit. Fuck the polls, these independents are far too concerned with producing a stable government to worry about the polls. That's right, stable government, and that's us: stable. Not like that other lot, very unstable they are.
Wait, there's a poll out saying that voters in the independent's electorates want us, not the other lot. Polls! Gotta listen to the polls, these are the people who elected you. Are you insane? You must listen to them. It'd be a travesty of democracy. If they didn't vote for you, they would vote for us, so there…us. Gotta be us.
What, they don't care? Seriously? Well keep saying it just in case they do. If they do, they need to be reminded about it constantly. Short memories these guys…Shooorrrrttt memooorrieessss. Hey, why don't we remind them about that guy?
That'll scare em.
There is, I hear the parties say. In fact there are three of them, but they're not scared of boats. But what can we scare them with? Polls? Most people are afraid of polls, particularly when they're recent, or upcoming. They say the polls aren't swaying them, but they probably are, let’s keep talking about the polls.
Hang on, there's a poll out saying the public don't want us…shit. Fuck the polls, these independents are far too concerned with producing a stable government to worry about the polls. That's right, stable government, and that's us: stable. Not like that other lot, very unstable they are.
Wait, there's a poll out saying that voters in the independent's electorates want us, not the other lot. Polls! Gotta listen to the polls, these are the people who elected you. Are you insane? You must listen to them. It'd be a travesty of democracy. If they didn't vote for you, they would vote for us, so there…us. Gotta be us.
What, they don't care? Seriously? Well keep saying it just in case they do. If they do, they need to be reminded about it constantly. Short memories these guys…Shooorrrrttt memooorrieessss. Hey, why don't we remind them about that guy?
That'll scare em.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
2PPissed
There is a creeping desperation engulfing many journalists as they realise that more than a week after the election they still have no fucking idea what will happen, who is in charge, or if they'll be able to remember all the names of the independents. Like someone who has lost their balance in the vicinity of a rancid koi pond, they will grasp at anything that will momentarily postpone their inevitable plunge into the murky sludge, chip packets and transparent fish of national irrelevance.
Take for example yesterday's obsession with the utterly meaningless 'seesawing race' of the two-party preferred vote. The whole thing smacked of reporting for reporting sake. Yesterday's stories completely ignored the fact that a whole eight seats were removed from the 2PP count yesterday by the AEC for procedural reasons. So sure, the Coalition was leading on votes, BUT ONLY IF YOU DON'T COUNT ALL OF THE VOTES. Jesus Christ, how about you actually ring someone at the AEC and ask them, instead of just opening the front page of their website and then running to your editor, yelling like a child who just shat in the potty unassisted for the first time?
The AEC is of course, pressured to release 2PP preferred figures even when they know they mean nothing. This is a close election, it will literally be weeks until the correct 2PP is known. We will either have a Government or another election by then so it will make no difference at all. Are we really going to see daily updates in News Ltd for the next three weeks?
Some blame must go to the parties who like to talk this shit up when it's in their favour, like Gillard did the day after the election, and like Julie Bishop did yesterday when she basically claimed the Coalition had won the election. They know that 2PP means nothing and is constitutionally irrelevant. It comes down to numbers in the house, always has, always will. Poor old Antony Green had to come out on his day off and attempt to explain this to people. Let the man sleep for fuck's sake.
In the mean time, while we don't know what's going to happen, how about we just MOVE THE FUCK ON? Did you hear that Rob Palmer won Dancing with the Stars? Who the fuck is that?
Take for example yesterday's obsession with the utterly meaningless 'seesawing race' of the two-party preferred vote. The whole thing smacked of reporting for reporting sake. Yesterday's stories completely ignored the fact that a whole eight seats were removed from the 2PP count yesterday by the AEC for procedural reasons. So sure, the Coalition was leading on votes, BUT ONLY IF YOU DON'T COUNT ALL OF THE VOTES. Jesus Christ, how about you actually ring someone at the AEC and ask them, instead of just opening the front page of their website and then running to your editor, yelling like a child who just shat in the potty unassisted for the first time?
The AEC is of course, pressured to release 2PP preferred figures even when they know they mean nothing. This is a close election, it will literally be weeks until the correct 2PP is known. We will either have a Government or another election by then so it will make no difference at all. Are we really going to see daily updates in News Ltd for the next three weeks?
Some blame must go to the parties who like to talk this shit up when it's in their favour, like Gillard did the day after the election, and like Julie Bishop did yesterday when she basically claimed the Coalition had won the election. They know that 2PP means nothing and is constitutionally irrelevant. It comes down to numbers in the house, always has, always will. Poor old Antony Green had to come out on his day off and attempt to explain this to people. Let the man sleep for fuck's sake.
In the mean time, while we don't know what's going to happen, how about we just MOVE THE FUCK ON? Did you hear that Rob Palmer won Dancing with the Stars? Who the fuck is that?
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Borhung
After little more than a week, the media has already decided that hung parliaments are boring. They said the parliament was 'well hung' in the first five minutes, had a giggle, and now they're out of material. They cannot quite believe that the independents have not yet made a decision. How are they supposed to continue on with their simplistic, piss-weak political 'narrative' pieces if there's no ending to the story?
The opinion writers at the Australian are over it already. "Fuck it, let's just have another election" is the message from the Oz, most notably from that Noddy-haired douche bag Shanahan. Presumably this means the Gillard Government will fall over line, punch drunk, crawling over the floor to the nearest glass of hemlock, but that's another story…sorry…'narrative'. The level of boredom amongst most of the media is palpable.
Initially it was fine. The chaotic 'lack of decision' atmosphere allowed them to run 'New Era of Politics' and 'Rejection of Blah Blah' rubbish to fill in the gaps between celebrity elimination-based game shows. Two or three days in however, things started to get distinctly uninteresting. Watching three old guys they've never heard of sit in a room talking about policy just doesn’t have any cut through. Where’s the arrogant triumphalism of the winners? Where's the wrist-slashing, tear-the-soul-out-of-the-party infighting of the losers? That's why we have elections as far as they're concerned; to watch the bloody aftermath and speculate about bullshit of which they have no idea.
Instead the only material they have to work with is Bob Katter's akubra-seen-from-space, Barnaby Joyce being 'disappeared' by Arthur Sinodinos, and Bill Heffernan admitting to being the Devil to an MP's wife whom he thought was a small child.
Oh sure, that sounds pretty good as a sentence, but try and write a 600 word piece on it while insinuating that Tony Abbott is the only viable Prime Minister. Absolute murder.
The opinion writers at the Australian are over it already. "Fuck it, let's just have another election" is the message from the Oz, most notably from that Noddy-haired douche bag Shanahan. Presumably this means the Gillard Government will fall over line, punch drunk, crawling over the floor to the nearest glass of hemlock, but that's another story…sorry…'narrative'. The level of boredom amongst most of the media is palpable.
Initially it was fine. The chaotic 'lack of decision' atmosphere allowed them to run 'New Era of Politics' and 'Rejection of Blah Blah' rubbish to fill in the gaps between celebrity elimination-based game shows. Two or three days in however, things started to get distinctly uninteresting. Watching three old guys they've never heard of sit in a room talking about policy just doesn’t have any cut through. Where’s the arrogant triumphalism of the winners? Where's the wrist-slashing, tear-the-soul-out-of-the-party infighting of the losers? That's why we have elections as far as they're concerned; to watch the bloody aftermath and speculate about bullshit of which they have no idea.
Instead the only material they have to work with is Bob Katter's akubra-seen-from-space, Barnaby Joyce being 'disappeared' by Arthur Sinodinos, and Bill Heffernan admitting to being the Devil to an MP's wife whom he thought was a small child.
Oh sure, that sounds pretty good as a sentence, but try and write a 600 word piece on it while insinuating that Tony Abbott is the only viable Prime Minister. Absolute murder.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Field of Delusions
If there is one thing that the 2010 Federal Election did not have enough of, other than content, it was truly moronic things said by Senator Stephen Fielding. Aside from a bewildering ad preaching Family First as 'common sense without the violence' (like saying rational thinking without the crack smoking), and claiming that The Greens want 'injecting rooms on every corner' while attempting to explain dry, complex preference deals, Steve Fielding just didn't say enough dumb shit for my liking.
But you can't keep a good simpleton down and, true to form, Fielding has come out and unleashed another gem of political idiocy. He has threatened to block supply when: there's no supply to block, he doesn't have the numbers to block it if there was AND he's just been voted out of parliament. What a mandate!
This is Lyndon Larouche scale political delusion. Obviously he wants to take his ball and go home, except it's not his ball, nobody invited him to play and he's a no-friends fuck-tard whom everyone hates.
Of course, Fielding is still a Senator until July, 10 months to bask in his 2 percent vote haul from six years ago. He still believes he has time to hold someone to ransom … anyone really, as long as it’s for something ridiculous.
"Will someone please be my electoral hostage? Why can’t I jeopardise the nation's very economic stability to reintroduce some arcane religious law banning the petting of cats in mixed company?”
“Why won’t you let me live? Please let me live. Let me live by making your life harder.”
And before all the major party hangers-on agree with me and bitch at how such a moron could have stumbled into an almost balance of power situation, remember that it was the Labor Party who put him there with a preference deal that has bitten everyone right between the cheeks.
Stephen Fielding may be a national disgrace, but putting the man in the Senate was an international embarrassment.
But you can't keep a good simpleton down and, true to form, Fielding has come out and unleashed another gem of political idiocy. He has threatened to block supply when: there's no supply to block, he doesn't have the numbers to block it if there was AND he's just been voted out of parliament. What a mandate!
This is Lyndon Larouche scale political delusion. Obviously he wants to take his ball and go home, except it's not his ball, nobody invited him to play and he's a no-friends fuck-tard whom everyone hates.
Of course, Fielding is still a Senator until July, 10 months to bask in his 2 percent vote haul from six years ago. He still believes he has time to hold someone to ransom … anyone really, as long as it’s for something ridiculous.
"Will someone please be my electoral hostage? Why can’t I jeopardise the nation's very economic stability to reintroduce some arcane religious law banning the petting of cats in mixed company?”
“Why won’t you let me live? Please let me live. Let me live by making your life harder.”
And before all the major party hangers-on agree with me and bitch at how such a moron could have stumbled into an almost balance of power situation, remember that it was the Labor Party who put him there with a preference deal that has bitten everyone right between the cheeks.
Stephen Fielding may be a national disgrace, but putting the man in the Senate was an international embarrassment.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Arbibtruary
As faceless men go, he is the most faceless of all. His eyebrows have already disappeared, sucked into the vortex of his ruthless and soulless ambition. His nose, mouth and eyes will soon follow and he will become literally vacuus vultus – empty face. He is Mark Arbib, and he is the reason the impending apocalypse can be described as 'not all bad.'
Arbib represents the disconnection between the Australian populace and the political machine. He is utterly contemptible and unelectable however, he is a powerbroker, a chooser of Prime Ministers and a Senator. Like a vicious joke where you begin laughing but end up convulsed with grief. It's well known in politics that if want to put a snivelling cunt, an evil bastard or an unreconstructed socialist into parliament, you put them at the top of a major party's senate ticket. That is how such unrepresentative swill make their way into parliament.
What do these people achieve in parliament? The answer is nothing. They do not usually take ministries, they do not usually spearhead legislation, they sit in dark rooms and plan the next knifing, to be followed by the ascendancy of the person whom they have the most dirt on. When Julia Gillard pulled Arbib from Q and A on Monday the ABC picked the best possible replacement – an empty chair. Because that's what Mark Arbib is: empty…an empty chair.
A hung parliament is the only time in which power is removed from people like Arbib, so for now he will wither. He will however, survive. Just as cockroaches will survive the blessed nuclear apocalypse, so will Arbib survive this 'stable' minority government. He will emerge, sustained by the evacuated faeces of the dead, to once again take the shadowy throne of hackery.
These men will never go away, not when it is so easy to number that one box above the line and so hard to care enough to do anything else. Enjoy the brief loosening of their chokehold, before they once again tighten their grip, and suck the life out of puppies everywhere.
Arbib represents the disconnection between the Australian populace and the political machine. He is utterly contemptible and unelectable however, he is a powerbroker, a chooser of Prime Ministers and a Senator. Like a vicious joke where you begin laughing but end up convulsed with grief. It's well known in politics that if want to put a snivelling cunt, an evil bastard or an unreconstructed socialist into parliament, you put them at the top of a major party's senate ticket. That is how such unrepresentative swill make their way into parliament.
What do these people achieve in parliament? The answer is nothing. They do not usually take ministries, they do not usually spearhead legislation, they sit in dark rooms and plan the next knifing, to be followed by the ascendancy of the person whom they have the most dirt on. When Julia Gillard pulled Arbib from Q and A on Monday the ABC picked the best possible replacement – an empty chair. Because that's what Mark Arbib is: empty…an empty chair.
A hung parliament is the only time in which power is removed from people like Arbib, so for now he will wither. He will however, survive. Just as cockroaches will survive the blessed nuclear apocalypse, so will Arbib survive this 'stable' minority government. He will emerge, sustained by the evacuated faeces of the dead, to once again take the shadowy throne of hackery.
These men will never go away, not when it is so easy to number that one box above the line and so hard to care enough to do anything else. Enjoy the brief loosening of their chokehold, before they once again tighten their grip, and suck the life out of puppies everywhere.
Monday, August 23, 2010
A Conga Line of Suckholes
As the parties prepare for the suck-up of all suck-ups, and the independents begin listing demands to turn back boats full of Filipinos (bananas that is), install an ETS (Excessive Tariffs and Socialism) or a CPRS (Cash and Pork Barrelling for Regional Shitholes), many are saying that Saturday's non-result is good for democracy.
I don't know about good. Interesting for democracy? Maybe. Annoying for democracy? Definitely. Proof that the politics of campaigns has become so confused that no one knows what anyone stands for anymore? Abso-fucking-lutely.
The fact that people could not find difference between Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott is a searing indictment on the leaders, how the media reported the campaign and how the public informed themselves. It's like the leaders shat in the same hole and the media picked through random turds to throw at you in the newsbreak between Dancing with the Stars and Australia's Next Top Boot Scooter. The people decided to make no decision and now we are faced with the possible nightmare situation where this election will not fucking end.
Independent Robert Oakeshott has suggested a Government of National Unity. The fact that people think that will work shows just how the parties have succeeded in suppressing their ideology from the public. If the parties have no ideology there is no passion, and if there is no passion we get the sort of brain-mush creating bland-a-thons we have just witnessed. But people abhor ideology in politics, because it would force them to think about their own. A self-interested electorate produces self-interested political parties, and that is what we have.
Do not expect a workable anything out of whatever ragtag administration is produced out of this clusterfuck. It will only be a matter of time before Bob Katter realises that whoever he's in bed with will not reintroduce agricultural trade tariffs, or legislate a xenophobic banana policy and that will be it: election time again.
Another race to the bottom, in a bottomless pit of meaningless shit.
I don't know about good. Interesting for democracy? Maybe. Annoying for democracy? Definitely. Proof that the politics of campaigns has become so confused that no one knows what anyone stands for anymore? Abso-fucking-lutely.
The fact that people could not find difference between Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott is a searing indictment on the leaders, how the media reported the campaign and how the public informed themselves. It's like the leaders shat in the same hole and the media picked through random turds to throw at you in the newsbreak between Dancing with the Stars and Australia's Next Top Boot Scooter. The people decided to make no decision and now we are faced with the possible nightmare situation where this election will not fucking end.
Independent Robert Oakeshott has suggested a Government of National Unity. The fact that people think that will work shows just how the parties have succeeded in suppressing their ideology from the public. If the parties have no ideology there is no passion, and if there is no passion we get the sort of brain-mush creating bland-a-thons we have just witnessed. But people abhor ideology in politics, because it would force them to think about their own. A self-interested electorate produces self-interested political parties, and that is what we have.
Do not expect a workable anything out of whatever ragtag administration is produced out of this clusterfuck. It will only be a matter of time before Bob Katter realises that whoever he's in bed with will not reintroduce agricultural trade tariffs, or legislate a xenophobic banana policy and that will be it: election time again.
Another race to the bottom, in a bottomless pit of meaningless shit.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
The Government We Deserve
We've got it. After all the bullshit we finally got the government we deserve: no government at all.
What other result could we have had after a campaign like that? I say, without hyperbole, that this campaign was the most negative, bland, disingenuous, insider gang-bang of self-important fuck-tards in the history of democracy. Okay, so maybe that is hyperbole but fuck it, it's warranted.
I have punched more walls in the past two weeks than I did in my entire tenure at high school.
The electorate has delivered a message so confused that only one thing is sure – no one was really paying attention anyway. And why would they? This election would have disillusioned even the most hard-bitten party hack. Mark Arbib is sobbing into his bag of flavourless energy gel he uses for sustenance in place of food. Nick Minchin is being packed away in some closet in South Australia, even his soulless internal circuitry can not handle the tide of existential sadness.
Only Mark Latham, freshly off the meds (or on them, who can tell?) was smiling on Sunday morning, and even then that was probably because he had just witnessed a massacre of all those who had crossed him. The first step to being king shit of fuck mountain, I can almost guarantee he will run as an independent at the next election.
The next election will be sooner than you think as well, because whoever manages to pull government out of this immense stinking bog will be able to achieve absolutely nothing. If it's Gillard, she will face conservative independents in the lower house, and the Greens in the senate. If it's Abbott, Bob Brown will continuously shit in his lunch and Bob Katter will not let him sleep until Northern Queensland has returned to a system of agrarian socialism.
Nothing will happen, everything will stay the same, we will remain in stasis, and the people will be happy. "Shut-up, leave me alone and tell me when Masterchef starts again." That's the message from the electorate.
And they will reap what they sow.
What other result could we have had after a campaign like that? I say, without hyperbole, that this campaign was the most negative, bland, disingenuous, insider gang-bang of self-important fuck-tards in the history of democracy. Okay, so maybe that is hyperbole but fuck it, it's warranted.
I have punched more walls in the past two weeks than I did in my entire tenure at high school.
The electorate has delivered a message so confused that only one thing is sure – no one was really paying attention anyway. And why would they? This election would have disillusioned even the most hard-bitten party hack. Mark Arbib is sobbing into his bag of flavourless energy gel he uses for sustenance in place of food. Nick Minchin is being packed away in some closet in South Australia, even his soulless internal circuitry can not handle the tide of existential sadness.
Only Mark Latham, freshly off the meds (or on them, who can tell?) was smiling on Sunday morning, and even then that was probably because he had just witnessed a massacre of all those who had crossed him. The first step to being king shit of fuck mountain, I can almost guarantee he will run as an independent at the next election.
The next election will be sooner than you think as well, because whoever manages to pull government out of this immense stinking bog will be able to achieve absolutely nothing. If it's Gillard, she will face conservative independents in the lower house, and the Greens in the senate. If it's Abbott, Bob Brown will continuously shit in his lunch and Bob Katter will not let him sleep until Northern Queensland has returned to a system of agrarian socialism.
Nothing will happen, everything will stay the same, we will remain in stasis, and the people will be happy. "Shut-up, leave me alone and tell me when Masterchef starts again." That's the message from the electorate.
And they will reap what they sow.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
It's Everyone's Fault
Mark Latham is insane [please note that Mark Latham is not actually insane].
But as I said: insane. If you were going to donkey vote, would you really leave it blank? In encouraging electors to leave their ballot blank he has shown to be completely bereft of imagination. The ‘ultimate protest vote’, is he kidding? Has this man never heard of a C & B? An intricate doodle of the candidates playing sausage and clam? A write-in vote for…I don’t know…Mark Latham?
For all the sneering press and crazy-eyed-lunging-at-the-PM grandstanding, Latham’s special report was a boring pile of old toss. He pined for times when politics meant something. Like in 2004, when it was exactly the same as it is now.
Oddly he didn’t really blame the media, presumably because he now believes himself to be one of them. In the end he took the easy route and just blamed the major parties. Well woop-ti-fucking-doo. Because the parties control everything don’t they? They want campaigns to be like this, because soul destroying six week trudges through fields of bullshit is exactly why they got into politics.
It’s easy to blame the major parties, and the media, for the lack of policy information in election campaigns, because they are the ones who deliver the verbal excrement. But what of the individuals who lap it up like some sort of deranged, coprophagic animal with a $500000 mortgage? Why would the parties behave like this, why would the media report like this, if there was not an audience for it?
Are they doing it because they hate us? No, they are doing it because they understand people and their pathetic, small minded culture. This is the strategy that works, and you can’t blame them for using it.
The fact of the matter is that the first party to run a positive, fact-based, intelligent campaign with well articulated policy would be blown out of the water by the next boat that pitches up in Australian waters full of people who have the audacity to want a better life.
It’s the major parties’ fault, it’s the media’s fault and it’s your fault.
We’re all fucked, God is dead and we’re alone. Leaving your ballot blank will not change that.
But as I said: insane. If you were going to donkey vote, would you really leave it blank? In encouraging electors to leave their ballot blank he has shown to be completely bereft of imagination. The ‘ultimate protest vote’, is he kidding? Has this man never heard of a C & B? An intricate doodle of the candidates playing sausage and clam? A write-in vote for…I don’t know…Mark Latham?
For all the sneering press and crazy-eyed-lunging-at-the-PM grandstanding, Latham’s special report was a boring pile of old toss. He pined for times when politics meant something. Like in 2004, when it was exactly the same as it is now.
Oddly he didn’t really blame the media, presumably because he now believes himself to be one of them. In the end he took the easy route and just blamed the major parties. Well woop-ti-fucking-doo. Because the parties control everything don’t they? They want campaigns to be like this, because soul destroying six week trudges through fields of bullshit is exactly why they got into politics.
It’s easy to blame the major parties, and the media, for the lack of policy information in election campaigns, because they are the ones who deliver the verbal excrement. But what of the individuals who lap it up like some sort of deranged, coprophagic animal with a $500000 mortgage? Why would the parties behave like this, why would the media report like this, if there was not an audience for it?
Are they doing it because they hate us? No, they are doing it because they understand people and their pathetic, small minded culture. This is the strategy that works, and you can’t blame them for using it.
The fact of the matter is that the first party to run a positive, fact-based, intelligent campaign with well articulated policy would be blown out of the water by the next boat that pitches up in Australian waters full of people who have the audacity to want a better life.
It’s the major parties’ fault, it’s the media’s fault and it’s your fault.
We’re all fucked, God is dead and we’re alone. Leaving your ballot blank will not change that.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
The Millstone of Civic Duty
Get ready.
It’s the final week.
Just think, in seven days you can go back to not caring. All of a sudden people will stop telling you that boats are arriving, so you’ll stop complaining about the boats arriving. People will no longer tell you that immigration rates are too high, so you’ll stop thinking that Australia is being flooded with whatever supposed social detritus you hate this week. You won’t have to pretend to watch the 7:30 Report anymore.
In one week we will move into Australia’s favour part of the election cycle: the part that is furthest away from the next election. You will stop feeling pressured to make decisions about things you don’t care about, you will not have to know anything, anymore.
You will have put your vote to auction: going once, going twice, sold! – To the party with the best grasp of how to interpret results from a marginal electorate focus group full of swinging vote arsehats.
People like me will go away. We’ll stop starting Facebook arguments when you say something ridiculous. We’ll stop sending links you to news stories that you would never read anyway. We’ll stop giving you that strange look when you ask if the election has happened yet. For two and a half years we’ll be back in our box. Where we belong.
Masterchef will be back. You’ll get to see people cook things, and then see fat people in cravats eat them. That bald Greek guy will tell you to buy things from Coles. And you will. There’ll be dancing shows, and that one where they sing. People will cry, lose weight and win Hyundais through deception.
But then that time will come again. People will start telling you things. That guy Antony Green will appear again, what's with that guy? Those ads will come on TV again. Is it State or Federal this time? Who cares? It will be annoying, and someone else will have to take the kids to their football/rugby/just get them out of the house/soccer that Saturday morning. I’ll make them pay for asking my opinion. Why can’t they just stop the boats and leave me alone?
Isn’t democracy a bitch?
It’s the final week.
Just think, in seven days you can go back to not caring. All of a sudden people will stop telling you that boats are arriving, so you’ll stop complaining about the boats arriving. People will no longer tell you that immigration rates are too high, so you’ll stop thinking that Australia is being flooded with whatever supposed social detritus you hate this week. You won’t have to pretend to watch the 7:30 Report anymore.
In one week we will move into Australia’s favour part of the election cycle: the part that is furthest away from the next election. You will stop feeling pressured to make decisions about things you don’t care about, you will not have to know anything, anymore.
You will have put your vote to auction: going once, going twice, sold! – To the party with the best grasp of how to interpret results from a marginal electorate focus group full of swinging vote arsehats.
People like me will go away. We’ll stop starting Facebook arguments when you say something ridiculous. We’ll stop sending links you to news stories that you would never read anyway. We’ll stop giving you that strange look when you ask if the election has happened yet. For two and a half years we’ll be back in our box. Where we belong.
Masterchef will be back. You’ll get to see people cook things, and then see fat people in cravats eat them. That bald Greek guy will tell you to buy things from Coles. And you will. There’ll be dancing shows, and that one where they sing. People will cry, lose weight and win Hyundais through deception.
But then that time will come again. People will start telling you things. That guy Antony Green will appear again, what's with that guy? Those ads will come on TV again. Is it State or Federal this time? Who cares? It will be annoying, and someone else will have to take the kids to their football/rugby/just get them out of the house/soccer that Saturday morning. I’ll make them pay for asking my opinion. Why can’t they just stop the boats and leave me alone?
Isn’t democracy a bitch?
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Q's Without A's
12 days to go. How can there still be 12 days to go? It feels like they are repeating themselves already.
"I'm the most unrelenting and heartless on humanitarian issues that have no affect on the average voter, and in fact represents a broader insecurity that their well-funded, insular lifestyle is thoroughly undeserved."
"No I'M the most unrelenting and heartless on humanitarian issues that have no affect on the average voter, and in fact represents a broader insecurity that their well-funded, insular lifestyle is thoroughly undeserved…..and I hate women."
Over and over again with the same dross, like a three week projectile vomit of tepid scheme water. Only Q and A on the ABC has produced anything resembling decent performance from someone who counts. Even then most of them were akin to inoffensive dog shit – white, brittle and completely devoid of character. Not that I can watch Q and A anyway, as I can not stand the smug, self-important audience members who think that just because they can ask a loaded political question without stumbling, Tony Jones might give them a collegial wristy after the show.
SBS's Insight is no better, and in fact is much worse. Where Q and A merely allows the idiots to ask questions, Insight actually asks their opinion. It does so while discussing issues so intractable that you already know what people are going to say. It is a complete waste of time and is just plain infuriating. If I hear one more supposedly spontaneous round of applause for a comment so pathetically mundane that it could have appeared in an Australia Democrats advertising campaign, I will take out my machete and go a-hacking. Hands are a privilege, not a right. Tell it to someone who cares stumpy (this also goes for imbeciles who clap out of time at concerts).
"Tonight on Insight we discuss the Israel and Palestine conflict – Is there a solution?"
I don’t know, probably not, but if there was it is not going to be found on SBS on a Tuesday night. They might as well discuss "Abbott versus Howard – who is the bigger shithead?" or "Wilson Tuckey and Barnaby Joyce – who is the most likely to have a bunker filled with bottled water?" It's all the same meaningless bullshit that leaves people exactly where they started. Entrenched in views cunningly chosen when they thought it would impress someone they wanted to fuck.
And this is the stuff most people deem 'too intellectual'.
Learn to swim.
"I'm the most unrelenting and heartless on humanitarian issues that have no affect on the average voter, and in fact represents a broader insecurity that their well-funded, insular lifestyle is thoroughly undeserved."
"No I'M the most unrelenting and heartless on humanitarian issues that have no affect on the average voter, and in fact represents a broader insecurity that their well-funded, insular lifestyle is thoroughly undeserved…..and I hate women."
Over and over again with the same dross, like a three week projectile vomit of tepid scheme water. Only Q and A on the ABC has produced anything resembling decent performance from someone who counts. Even then most of them were akin to inoffensive dog shit – white, brittle and completely devoid of character. Not that I can watch Q and A anyway, as I can not stand the smug, self-important audience members who think that just because they can ask a loaded political question without stumbling, Tony Jones might give them a collegial wristy after the show.
SBS's Insight is no better, and in fact is much worse. Where Q and A merely allows the idiots to ask questions, Insight actually asks their opinion. It does so while discussing issues so intractable that you already know what people are going to say. It is a complete waste of time and is just plain infuriating. If I hear one more supposedly spontaneous round of applause for a comment so pathetically mundane that it could have appeared in an Australia Democrats advertising campaign, I will take out my machete and go a-hacking. Hands are a privilege, not a right. Tell it to someone who cares stumpy (this also goes for imbeciles who clap out of time at concerts).
"Tonight on Insight we discuss the Israel and Palestine conflict – Is there a solution?"
I don’t know, probably not, but if there was it is not going to be found on SBS on a Tuesday night. They might as well discuss "Abbott versus Howard – who is the bigger shithead?" or "Wilson Tuckey and Barnaby Joyce – who is the most likely to have a bunker filled with bottled water?" It's all the same meaningless bullshit that leaves people exactly where they started. Entrenched in views cunningly chosen when they thought it would impress someone they wanted to fuck.
And this is the stuff most people deem 'too intellectual'.
Learn to swim.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Policy, Pollie Don't
In an election campaign as bereft of intelligence as say, I don't know…the last election; I find the lack of policy focus from both politicians and media alike thoroughly unsurprising. As we progress inevitably towards the point where society finally crumbles and rampant, sexually charged animism begins, election campaigns will continue to get dumber.
Political lame-arses like myself are being continually confronted with the prospect that to claim to like elections will be similar to claiming that one is interested in some rather uninspired pornographic theatre troupe. Recently it has become almost impossible to adequately talk about politics in the presence of sharp objects, lest one of the participants were to repeatedly stab themselves in the crown to release the homogenised mush that has been mercilessly fed into their consciousness.
It upsets me such a level that I fear I will become one of those people who state with proud banality that: "I don’t care about politics" or "Politics doesn't really affect me" or "I am merely a shell designed to reproduce and to search out the utopia of a 'pub-style parma' at home."
Increasingly, elections have moved away from people like me, they are not aimed at anyone with a particular set of world-views. The reason for this is that elections are not decided by people who possess any sort of consistent ideology. If, with a little under three weeks to go, you know who you are going to vote for, this election is not about you and never has been. If, for you, going to your old primary school on a random Saturday with 4-6 weeks warning can only be viewed as the most hideous of chores then pay attention: there's baby bonuses to be had.
If anyone has ever wondered why politicians offer thinly veiled bribes to buy votes at election time without shame, it is because there are people who literally have their votes for sale. It's thoroughly ironic to me that in a country that seems, at least in the last few decades, to value the trait of patriotism, that people are perfectly willing to declare naked self interest when deciding their vote. They usually do this on one of those terrible Today Tonight/A Current Affair election stories, which temporarily deny the need of viewers to know about shonky tradies and how to feed the family for less than $100. These are the people who decide elections, and will forever more.
And yet on Election Day I'll be standing at a primary school, handing out leaflets trying to woo these very people. Who's the idiot now?
Political lame-arses like myself are being continually confronted with the prospect that to claim to like elections will be similar to claiming that one is interested in some rather uninspired pornographic theatre troupe. Recently it has become almost impossible to adequately talk about politics in the presence of sharp objects, lest one of the participants were to repeatedly stab themselves in the crown to release the homogenised mush that has been mercilessly fed into their consciousness.
It upsets me such a level that I fear I will become one of those people who state with proud banality that: "I don’t care about politics" or "Politics doesn't really affect me" or "I am merely a shell designed to reproduce and to search out the utopia of a 'pub-style parma' at home."
Increasingly, elections have moved away from people like me, they are not aimed at anyone with a particular set of world-views. The reason for this is that elections are not decided by people who possess any sort of consistent ideology. If, with a little under three weeks to go, you know who you are going to vote for, this election is not about you and never has been. If, for you, going to your old primary school on a random Saturday with 4-6 weeks warning can only be viewed as the most hideous of chores then pay attention: there's baby bonuses to be had.
If anyone has ever wondered why politicians offer thinly veiled bribes to buy votes at election time without shame, it is because there are people who literally have their votes for sale. It's thoroughly ironic to me that in a country that seems, at least in the last few decades, to value the trait of patriotism, that people are perfectly willing to declare naked self interest when deciding their vote. They usually do this on one of those terrible Today Tonight/A Current Affair election stories, which temporarily deny the need of viewers to know about shonky tradies and how to feed the family for less than $100. These are the people who decide elections, and will forever more.
And yet on Election Day I'll be standing at a primary school, handing out leaflets trying to woo these very people. Who's the idiot now?
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